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Success

September 24, 2005 By pia

How do you define success?

Be real; I would hate people to not want material goods. But that’s me. I think that living well is the best revenge, though now that I think of it, I have nothing or nobody to avenge..

When I was about 16 I realized that my family had more money than the average upper-middle class family in our suburban hamlet. My family had never been “showy” as some of their friends in more affluen areas were. We lived well, traveled to distant shores, but our house was regular suburban, our ‘big” car was a Buick Electra, a Buick with the engine of a Cadillic.

We were solid; we were grounded. My parents were kind of cool, as evidenced in other posts, but taught fave sis and I that good values were as important as good manners and would take you anyplace.

Success to me is never based on how large your house is, what kind of car you drive, what your occupation is, but it’s something less tangible.

How you impact on people? What difference do you make to other people? How many people you make laugh? I’m just beginning to get into this, but I have company, so if you have any ideas….

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Comments

  1. Eric says

    September 24, 2005 at 9:42 am

    To me it’s a lot of little things. Just to reflect a little light onto someone’s life or to make someone laugh about something really serious.

    Oh I spend a fair amount of time at work telling women that their abusive boyfriend/husband/babydaddy will eventually kill them if they don’t get out of the relationship. And that always feels good (though I’d bet about 10% or less ever do). If only 1% of them credit me with kicking some sense into them (but in a nice way) then I can be happy at work. The rest is just work.

  2. SisterAbbye says

    September 24, 2005 at 9:47 am

    Pia, I hope you don’t mind if I join in here…this is a question I am smack in the middle of living, right now.

    I put my resignation in at my job because of a feeling of lack of success…not lack of money (have plenty though not tons) or prestige but lack of challenge and enjoyment.

    I like your start of the definition of success. Definately positive impact on others is success…and making people laugh is so important in every aspect. For me, getting people to laugh at me and being able to take myself lightly makes me feel successful.

    Challenge — personally, I can’t live life and feel successful without some kind of challenge whether it’s intellectual or physical, or making some sourpuss laugh. I can’t imagine not being able to accept or live without challenge.

    Being able to think for yourself — something that a lot of people forget is relatively rare. I can’t think of someone as successful unless they can honestly think for themselves, without blindly subscribing to any one dogma or school of thought.

    The ability to share without being taken advantage of; the ability to forgive (even if you never forget); the ability to take care of yourself.

    Not forgetting where you came from, being open to new possibilities…are those signs of success?

    Maybe success is completely relative and there is no one definition for it?

    Well, I’m rambling and stretching here…thanks for the thought.

  3. dan says

    September 24, 2005 at 6:49 pm

    Succcess is easiest defined by meeting goals. Everyone has different times when they feel successful… because tehy are all striving to accomplish different things.

    Some people want things, some want power, some want money, some want to be loved. We feel successful when we achieve what we set out to do.

  4. glomgold says

    September 24, 2005 at 10:21 pm

    I think success might be defined as achieving a true sense of fulfillment, which most likely should result from persistent growth throughout one’s life. I do have a sneaking suspicion that impacting (positively) others’ lives has its benefits and have been desperately trying to learn how to empathize with humanity. It’s been difficult. When it’s time to die I may have a better answer to your question!

  5. Jem says

    September 25, 2005 at 1:20 am

    To me, success is where you can turn around and honestly say “I wouldn’t change a thing about my life”.

    (Surfed in via BE)

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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