[2024-04-10] Just "being" is a success

In response to my recent post Success changes the narrative, a friend wrote to tell me about the way she currently measures success, which is simply being. Her comment resonated with me, so much so that I wanted to immortalize it here, where I would be much less likely to forget it. She said:

For someone like me, who has often (if not always) placed my self worth at the altar of personal or professional achievement, just "being" is a success these days. Just allowing myself to be, to sit still, to not strive.

I know that "not strive" may sound defeatist… but to me it’s the apex of achievement. Because it’s the one thing I could never do before, since I always felt that "getting somewhere" was the goal and a guarantee of acceptance and love.

I spent the first half of my life building, pushing, forging ahead at great speed. Now I want to put the breaks and just sit back and receive a bit more. I gave gave gave, now I need to receive. (Fun fact, I have a tattoo that I got as a teenager that says "give love" in Chinese characters… I now want another one that symbolizes "to receive love"!!)

I can only seem to receive in the quiet recesses of life (a meditation retreat, a warm sunrise through my window, listening to my daughter sleep…pausing).

I now want to measure my success in how much free time I have, how many hours I go outside, how little I stress about work or demands put upon me.

I especially loved her references to placing her "self-worth at the altar of personal or professional achievement" and getting somewhere as "a guarantee of acceptance and love." I replied to her: "Without realizing it, I suspect that acceptance and love were my motivations in working so hard too."

My friend's email reminded me of Erin Hanson's poem about the girl who never stopped:

For she was a human doing
Human moving, human seeing,
But she'd never taken time
To simply be a human being

My friend's message reminded me that I'm not alone in wanting to find peace, tranquility and stillness. Sometimes what I need is to be more and to do less.