You Can't Be Serious!

With my apologies to John McEnroe, I'm starting this blog with what (I believe) most people will think when they read the title of this blog. But, bear with me for a few more minutes.

Maybe, it's because I'm deep in the throes of a job search or maybe it's because I'm going through a mid-life crises, but I think it goes far deeper than that. For years, I've been considered a failure by friends, family and even some co-workers.  After all, I don't own a home, drive an expensive car, wear the latest fashions, throw lavish parties, take vacations, date fabulous men (or anyone at all for that matter). Right now I don't even have a job or any form of steady income. What I've never been able to get across to these well-meaning, but misguided souls is that these things ARE NOT what defines our success or failure. Success is not about the visible, tangible or material things that most of our western culture equates with the term. It is being true to ourselves; adhering to those personal values and ideals that are the essence of who we are. For without them, we feel like fakes or hypocrites.

Now I can readily accede to the fact that someone else's personal values and ideals can embrace the traditional definition of success as well as the accompanying outward displays of that success. I, however, cannot. And so, I begin my blogging career by embracing my failures and choosing to share them with others in the hope that I'm not the only one who thinks this way.