Success

[poliphilo]

What constitutes success?

Take my man Stephen Foster. He was America's first professional songwriter. He drank too much and his marriage suffered. His songs are still performed today. He died broke at 37.

He wrote "Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair" but his wife had already left him.

Is that success or failure?

Or is the paradigm irrelevant?

I'm thinking about myself, of course.

I've never been cut-throat ambitious. I've written all my life, but never worked particularly hard at getting published. I have publication credits here, there and over yonder, but not what you'd call a career. And do I care? No, not really.

I'm living my life on my own terms. That's what matters to me.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I'd define that as success.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I've just been reading an article about how high-flying business women struggle to reconcile work and family. The horror, the horror!

And behind it all lay the assumption that it was somehow laudable to want to flog your guts out in the service of some horrid, inhuman corporation.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

It's laudable to be able to do what you want, and what you're good at--and difficult when those are at odds with each other.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that people get suckered into chasing the kind of "success" that offers little real satisfaction or fulfilment.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Sure. But why lay that at the feet of working moms? Being a working mom seems so hard that one would be unlikely to pursue a high-powered career unless one found it fulfilling. I think if you're going to point fingers, working dads or people without children are far more likely to be susceptible to the appeal of "success" that offers little real satisfaction or fulfilment. Because they haven't given birth to the little exemplars of What Really Matters.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. I fully agree. It just happened that the article I read was about high-flying working mums. At least they mostly realise what they're missing. It'll be a sign of REAL progress when the working dads start complaining about not having enough time with their families.