birthday messages on the chalkboard
Tonight, I’m meeting with my Word of the Year friends. This will mark nearly a decade of participating in this ritual. I’m not positive I can remember all of the words chosen, but here are most of them, from oldest to newest: Create. Imagine. Spirit. Heart. Work/Play. Stretch. Success.
Success was my most recent word: the word for 2014. Chosen in anticipation of a big year career-wise; chosen because I realized that I was terrified and strangely ashamed by the idea of Success, and I wanted to explore why. I tried, but didn’t dig very far into the why. Maybe that would have required therapy. But I dug deep into the idea of Success and its meanings, its definitions, and learned that it’s very personal. There are external markers of Success that we tend to rely on: how much we earn, what we own, how much recognition we receive for our efforts.
Conversely, there are internal markers of Success that no one else will ever see or recognize. These are your values. What matters to you. What you care about. And it may just be that what you care about doesn’t align perfectly with what the world cares about.
That’s good to know. It helped me during this year to separate my own hopes and disappointments and dreams from the hopes and disappointments and dreams out there.
It was a good year, there’s no doubt about it. What I remember best and value most are the friendships and connections. New connections, ongoing friendships, give and take, small adventures. Fun. I’ll remember a gathering of friends and family in my living-room, singing and playing on the night I turned 40. I’ll remember skiing with a friend in the bitter cold last winter; and with the kids too. I’ll remember the generosity of friends hosting and feeding me in London, England last spring. And being part of the Published-A-Book-In-Canada Class of 2014 on tour this past fall. Looking back, it’s the people, I see.
I’m good with that definition of Success: not as a popularity contest, but as the formation of real bonds, strong connections.
Think of those throngs of people marching in Paris yesterday. To my mind, that is Success: an outpouring of collective, peaceful strength.
Up next: word of the year, 2015. Stay tuned.
xo, Carrie