About Damien's Blog Carnival on Success - and my own success

Damien Riley at Riley Central had a blog carnival going about success stories of people doing what they love. With Leon off all week, I got little done, blog wise, and forgot to post about his carnival. The deadline is June 9th, oops, today. I was going to write a post as an entry. . . but what I wrote is not really what I had intended. So, I am not entering it, but reminding you that maybe you can get one in, and if not, at least run over and read the other entries, after all we all love to hear of other people's success. There stories wiggle into our brains and help us to believe we can be happy at what we do, too. His link!

I am posting my thoughts though. The path is a bit convoluted, but some of you may have the patience to get through them. If not, rush over to Damien Riley's, this was not the first carnival he hosted and I am sure it will not be his last!


Success. . . at being me

I'm successful at being me, for the most part. That is all I want. Sounds puny, uninteresting, lacking in direction, a cop out?

Perhaps, but it is not easy being me. Although, sometimes it would be harder being you, or you, especially you - out there in the forefront leading us on to bigger and better things. For the most part it is harder being me than you, or you, or you over there, just skating through life and accepting whatever comes your way without daring to dream. Yes, I know I am right -- about this anyway -- because I have been you, and you, and you, over there, the one skating through.

If I were like everyone else, it would be much simpler. Just go with the flow, not swim upstream, be called different, or eccentric, or weird, or "who ARE you, anyway?". For years it felt hard to be me. I was the safety fanatic; I was the shy one; I was the smart one (although I rebelled a bit at that and sat back for a while and did nothing); I was the silly one; I was the one who talked too much, or thought too deeply; I was the one who had nothing constructive to add to the conversation; I was the. . . well, whatever it was, that day, that he and she and that one over there, weren't.

It felt cold some days. It felt lonely some days, although, in retrospect, that was my self-imposed, I-feel-different-so-I-can't-be-liked, loneliness, partially, at least.

Don't know when I made up my mind to just be me and love it. I think it was there all along inside, down really really deep. I'm sure, in fact, otherwise, I would have never smiled or laughed or dared to be silly or fought those few times for me.

It may have been those times I didn't fight for me that eventually welled the "I do love me" up and out of those recesses into the forefront. Self preservation or self realization? Either one or both, it worked.

So, now, I am successful at being me. I blog, I write, I don't worry (as much, I am human, after all) if I am accepted or rejected. I have bought in to my own words: there is an audience out there for everyone's words; some audiences are larger than others, some are harder to find, but they are there.

And once I realized that last year, it dawned on me: "audience for everyone" pertains to everything in life. . . I can be me - as long as I like the me I choose to be that day. If I mess up, well, just have to fix it.