I Need To Redefine Success // Unlearning a Toxic Mindset with Success
Hello Folk of the Hollow! Welcome back!
November is in full swing here in the Hollow, but the temperatures remain surprisingly warm for this time of year. Though the very early mornings are very cold, the afternoons are warm enough that one doesn’t need any kind of jacket or anything. It’s a little disappointing for it to still be so warm in a time of year when we’re supposed to be getting ready for Christmas, but there has been quite a bit of rain so that’s something to be excited about!
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes someone successful, and what success means to me. We are told growing up that making a lot of money will make us successful—being able to buy a big house, having a “typical” or “normal” job that you go to every day, a car that is bigger and better and newer than everyone else you know—without any consideration at all for the way we feel in our hearts about what we do and how we live.
When I was younger success used to mean making a ton of money and travelling to exotic lands, or being constantly on television for my books. I thought if something exciting was happening to me all the time and I always had some big news to share then I will have finally made it.
But as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that success doesn’t come from the big things in life—but rather, the small things that make up our everyday lives. Though I still hope that my books will make a lot of money someday, it has become less about equating money with success and more about having it be a source of personal security.
My idea of success now is being able to be creative as much as possible. I want to make a positive impact on the world in any way I can, even if it’s small. When I finally get my garden started I want to grow things that will help the environment in any way I can, and to help by learning to make my own clothes rather than continue to participate in fast fashion.
I’ve been doing what I can in that last part, wherever I can. It’s impossible to expect a full conversion right away, but whenever there’s something I want from a fast fashion brand I try to buy it second-hand from places like Poshmark and Mercari. I’ve also been looking into learning to sew so I can mend and alter the clothes I have, and also create whole new pieces. Over the last year I’ve learned a lot about the fast-fashion industry, and sometimes I feel like I’m a little too ignorant to have an stateable opinion so forgive me if I sound a little dumb, but I want to participate in it as little as possible now that I know just how much it’s been hurting the planet.
But I digress—this post isn’t about that. What I mean to say before I got a little lost for a second, is that now that I’m older I’ve begun to feel like success is less about having a lot of things and more about helping to create a better world in any way we can.
Like I said somewhere above (again, before I got lost in my own thoughts) I’m trying to feel more like the smaller things in life are successes. Building a garden—and if the garden fails, not feeling like it failed but instead was a successful way to learn—learning to sew—even if I’m not very good at it at first—doing small crafts—I’ve made a lot of strides in learning cross-stitch and crochet, and any act of creation is cause for celebration—I need to focus more on those and less on the larger scale things. Filling my life with beauty and learning and art and literature is the greatest sense of success I can imagine now that I’m not that kid anymore.
The world is full of beautiful things. The feeling of the breeze on a crisp autumn morning, the taste of a freshly brewed cup of coffee, the ebb and flow of a well written novel. People forget that sometimes when they are so busy chasing the ideal of what “success” means as other people have tried to tell us it means. I’m guilty of not being able to see it either sometimes, but I’m working every day to alleviate that. I don’t want to miss all the beauty in the world.
I hope all of that made sense! I was kind of just . . . well . . . yapping and trying to reflect what I’m feeling in my heart. That’s a hard thing for me to do. Often I just keep my thoughts to myself because I’m afraid I’ll come off as stupid or something, but I want to start sharing my opinions on things like this.
Okay, I’m done now. You’re free lol
What is your definition of success? Are you trying to repair your relationship with the concept like I am? Let me know!
Until Next time!
