Success By Any Other Name...

I was voted most likely to succeed in my high school class. Well, most likely to succeed, or smartest. I don't really remember, and it's not worth digging out my yearbook to find out. To be honest with you, it didn't mean a whole lot to me then, and it still doesn't today. In fact, I haven't even thought about any of that stuff in over 10 years, until it was brought to mind in a somewhat jarring fashion today.

A colleague of mine recounted a conversation she had recently with  someone who 'knew me then'. When this woman found out that I was spending my time changing diapers and helping fellow home schoolers, she shook her head and said of me, "she had so much potential..." Apparently, at least according to her, I could have really been someone. I guess that's a nice vote of confidence, but I was as disappointed by her statement as she must have been by my lack of "success".

See, all this time I've been laboring under the misconception that I am not just someone waiting to be, but that I already am someone important. I guess I figure that I have been living up to my full potential - making a difference in the world in a meaningful way, doing good deeds, living a life of purpose and importance. A life of wiping noses and cleaning up spilled beverages, to be sure, but an important life, none the less.

I can't really blame her, I guess. I know that, by the standards of this world, I have failed to achieve the success that I could have. I don't have a high-falutin' job or a fat paycheck. I don't have a big, fancy house or an expensive car. I don't even have cable. My children still wear hand-me-downs, and I shop at secondhand stores for clothing, and discount stores for everything else. How can I be sure I'm meeting my full potential when I don't even meet any of the standard measures of a success these days?

Well, it turns out that there are better measures to be found. Just this evening my youngest child came up to me, in all of her innocent, earnest, three-year-old wisdom, and asked, "Mommy, how tall do you weigh?" I replied (in what I thought was the most appropriate answer to such a question)  "I weigh 5' 10".

Apparently I was wrong. She said I weigh 22 minutes, and that that's too big. Hmm.Who knew? Just goes to show you, even valedictorians get the answer wrong once in a while. (Ok, technically I wasn't valedictorian of my class, since I graduated early and wasn't eligible to be considered for the honor, but it fit into the theme of the blog nicely, so I just went with it.)

I know, I know... my three-year-old's unit of measure doesn't make any sense. (And, who said that 22 minutes is too big, anyway? Sure, I could stand to lose a few seconds here and there... But, I think that I'm very healthy at 22 minutes, especially if you take into account that I'm a tall girl - I do weigh almost six feet, after all!)  Anyway, her unit of measure may be not be logical, but neither is any other if you think about it. The fact that I had the time to talk with my daughter tonight is worth far more than a six-figure salary. Having her help me make supper was better than a power lunch any day, and the fact that she really knows me and I really know her are far, far better things than any amount of fame or world-wide notoriety I could have achieved.

When I graduated from high school, I was ready to take on the world. To leave my mark in life. I wanted to reach for the stars. I wanted to succeed.  I finally realize what that all means. What good is it to gain the whole world, but lose your soul by selling out, giving in, and giving up what matters most? How can you leave your mark in life when you are so much like everyone else that you don't leave a lasting impression?  This summer I laid on the lawn with my giggly girls watching a meteor shower. My five-year-old would gleefully reach up and try to catch God's fireworks as they shot across the sky. We may have failed to actually ever reach any of those blazing stars, but the fact that we were there and trying together is its own kind of success...