Defining Success

How do you define your own success? In what way do the stars need to align in order for you to feel successful, happy, fulfilled?

An interesting issue has come up for me. This phenomenon that in order to successfully have completed this journey and this transformation that I need to become involved again in a relationship....just leaves me pondering the underlying message that sends.

I think a lot of people pity 'the single girl' (or Mom as the case may be). Ya know what? I am a truly happy person. I mean, not all the time every single day of the week, who's like that? The pressure of being perfect and wonderful all the time is just too much. I mess up, I screw up, I make mistakes, but it makes me human and I get to learn and grow. What a gift, truly.

But, back to that underlying message - why is it that success is measured on whether or not you choose to take up a partner? That's not success, that's a conscious decision. Just like choosing to NOT involve a partner in your life for whatever reasons you might have is a conscious decision. I don't want a rigid ideal prescribed to me. I don't need a partner in my life to feel like the picture is complete. It's not complete, it's different. Just like having a dog makes some people complete and makes some people crazy.

I often sit back and ponder on my actions and what things I have chosen to do over this last year, and I think it's important that I do that. I journal about it (this isn't that journal, by the way. Although I'm sure it seems that way sometimes, LOL!) I know with 100% certainty that I have absolutely zero regrets. What would the point of that be? I'm not going to make myself a prisoner within the regrets of my actions. Whenever I have a regret, or worry about whether or not I have done the wrong thing, I try to justify it. But that's just masking my regrets. I don't regret a SINGLE decision, choice, interaction, anything that I have done. Because I am so comfortable and have no regrets, any criticism for my actions truly does for the most part just leave me pitying the person with nothing better to do other than decide that they would have done it better. I don't need to justify doing the right thing. 

Because I have zero regrets, and because I am choosing to define my success by MY standards and not some societal set of rules, I get to be the person I want to be. What a gift! Find your bliss. Define your own success. Live by your rules. Screw anyone that tries to put you in a box. And tell them to get a hobby. ;-)

And by the way....who says that I don't? I don't tell you all everything.  ;-)