The Pecan Park Eagle

Success is not something anyone else can give us, buy for us, make us accept, bring into our lives by their presence, or leave us in a will. Neither is it a short hop race or quick buy on E-Bay or a quick muscles, fast diet or mail order degree plan.

Success is something we gain from our own effort over time that we believe in and apply ourselves to accomplishing because even the effort expended to get there causes us to live more comfortably in our own skin.

Somewhere along the way, when we are kids, it helps to have had a parent, a teacher, a coach, or an adult mentor of some sort tell us what they see of our abilities. One trustworthy adult asking us, even once, something like, “Do you realize how good you are with math, poetry, or whatever it is” goes so much further than “try harder” or that great wall of silence that only feeds our childhood fear of the unknown. (“Maybe the adults don’t say anything good to me because they haven’t seen anything in me that they like.”)

I had a forty-year old man call me up this past year just to thank me for being there for him when he was ten and going through his parents’ divorce as an only child. Back then I was very active as a family therapist. I still maintain a small practice with people who prefer the old school approach, but nothing like the volume of the old days.

The man said I told him the following back then: “Look, I know you’re scared, but you are going to make it through this tough time because you are a very good guy with two parents who both love you too, even if they don’t much care for each other. And you have abilities to write that are going to carry you through school and onto a successful life working with people yourself someday.”

The kid held onto those words forever. Today he runs his own successful company. And he communicates as a grown man very, very well. I can’t begin to tell you how important that phone call was to me. It’s not the first of that nature that I have been privileged to receive. And I always hope that it’s not the last.

Perseverance with the truth about ourselves over time, and using what we know is true to give back to life with whatever love and talents we have is the closest I can now come at my age to defining success. It has nothing to do with being perfect, unless your love is performing brain surgery, or working as an airport controller, but it is about persevering in your fulfillment of accomplishable goals with the abilities you have for as long as you can rise out of the bullpen and pitch one more inning of near hitless and walk-free scoreless ball.

When you’ve got that done and clear of your system, it may be time to sit back and relax in satisfaction over a job well done and a life well lived. Everybody travels through the land of “been there / done that” – even if they missed their first chance to debark the train at Restwell. It’s OK to rest with your success. If you don’t see that, you’ve missed the whole point of what I’ve tried to say here.

Just remember, if there’s a special young person in your own life that you could encourage with the right kind of positive feedback you see in their abilities, don’t leave what you could say to them on the wall of silence. You may never know what difference it will make down the road, but it will matter. That much I know from personal experience many times over.