Success

You know that awful feeling when even though you're trying to do things right, everything turns out dreadfully wrong?  And you know nothing about how to fix it because you thought you were doing everything right in the first place.

So you step back and evaluate.  Maybe I should just focus on one thing right now, you tell yourself.  Just make one thing end up the way I'd like it to and the rest will just fall into place... (Insert sound of a buzzer calling out the wrong answer to a game show trivia question).  Wrong.  Dead wrong.

You now find that everything else you were failing at before...is still failing.  One area is stuck in pitiful standstill, while another is flying above your head like a hummingbird even your eyes can't keep up with.  As if that's not bad enough, even that one area you are most focused on--that one thing in your life supposed to turn out right--is not turning out according to plan.  You are, again, not living up to your expectations.  Or anyone else's.

Oh, and NOW, even those little, tiny details of your life--the areas you absolutely have no time to worry about--are falling apart.  Like the traffic that seems to conveniently congregate any time you are in a hurry.  Or those fresh pimples on your face that were supposed to abandon you after adolescence.  No, no, no, these things are NOT supposed to happen when you are loosing it everywhere else.  But they always seem to anyway.

Now what??  You fail at everything--even the 'clear-movie-star-skin-in-your-twenties' thing (what a joke)--and you have absolutely nothing going for you.  What to do?...Hide under a rock?  Retreat to your parents' house and let your mom do your laundry for you again?  Ooh, that one sounds nice...  Quit everything and start a new life as a hobo? (Homeless, but simplified life=achieved). 

These options seem a bit extreme. 

So instead of converting to hobo-ism, I re-evaluate.  Why am I failing?  Or why do I think I'm failing?  What is failure?  ...I guess, more importantly, what is success?  Success means to attain, achieve, win.  But to attain what?  Achieve what?  Win what? 

...Things that matter.

A successful person is someone who chases dreams and tries new things, are they not?  A successful person doesn't waste time, and yet doesn't forget to slow down and enjoy moments.  Success involves hoping and wishing and dreaming, but not stopping there.  Successful people act on their hopes, fulfill those wishes, and makes others' dreams come true.

The feeling of failure is not a result of 'un-successes'.  It's failure to perceive what success truly means.