Success

I have always struggled to really feel successful, especially when I look around at what American culture deems successful. Money, power, possessions, and "coolness" are successes that just don't resonate with my soul, and even when attained don't feel like real success to me. They just feel empty and pointless. I have written about my struggle with defining success before in an essay that was published on The Art of Simple blog a couple of years ago, and it's something I've been pondering again recently, as I start to gather the necessary information to prepare my taxes and see numbers upon numbers that declare my "worth" but that feel completely meaningless. 

I imagine I don't much look like a picture of success to those peeping in from the outside, especially in the affluent part of the world I live in. I live in an older, smallish house with nothing in the way of fanciness. I drive a car with 108,000 miles on it and a huge gash down one side. I'm a barista at Starbucks and will never get rich doing that, even with the recent raise I received. But interestingly, it is in this line of work that I have begun to understand different, more meaningful (to me) definitions of success and where I have finally felt the greatest success of my life. 

Early on, when every part of the job still felt a bit overwhelming and I wondered if I would ever really get it, a manager said to me at the end of a shift, " I can really tell that you are improving. Be patient with yourself; everything will click before too long." For much of my life, "perfection" felt like the definition of success, but this word "improvement" resonated deeply with me and felt like actual success. "Improvement" is a level of success I can handle. "Perfection" is just ridiculous. Another time at work, a co-worker said, "I love working with you, Mandi, because you are always so proactive." Seeing what needs to be done and doing it, anticipating the needs of those around me and helping reduce the frustration an unmet need could cause: This feels like success. I don't get paid extra to be proactive, and I have plenty of co-workers that are not and get paid the same as me, but being "proactive" matters, at least to me, and feels like a true contribution to the team. Another time, a manager said, "I appreciate you because no matter which role I ask you to fill, I know you will do a good job and that you will do the job without complaining," which triggered that same feeling of success within me. On several occasions I have had co-workers say how much they enjoy working with me because I'm always so kind and encouraging. More feelings of success. And, recently, I had a customer come through the drive-thru and tell me at the window that I was "absolutely the most pleasant person" and that she could "feel [my] positive energy radiating through the speaker." After work, I relayed this moment a friend, ending the story with, "this is what success feels like to me because it's truly the kind of person I aspire to be." And, it's true. Being a person of character, who makes my little piece of the world a better place, even in a job that will never be considered "important" by the American success gurus, is what matters most to me. I'm glad I'm finally at the point in my life where I can stop shaming myself for not being "successful" as the world sees success and truly appreciate and celebrate those things that my heart recognizes as successful.