Success...Only You Can Judge Your Own.

I am so tired of my ideas being shut down and disregarded. I have thoughts. I have ideas. So why is it that when I have an idea that I want to pursue, someone always has to say it has been done, it is stupid, you wont do well. I can do well at anything I want to and I will not accept (any longer) being told that I cannot achieve what I want. Even if an idea is something that is not completely original, if it is something that is important to me and I feel like I can put my own spin on it, then why should my thoughts on the matter be rejected. Nowadays, there is so much information and knowledge out there that covers the basic ideas of seemingly everything. But what if what I have to say is not “the basic ideas?” What if what I want to share is the story of my life in the context of greater, already existing issues and ideas? It is still MY story. I am really the only one who has a right to tell my story, because it is mine. Since it is not like my life is all that interesting and I do not have authors flocking to share my life with their yearning audiences, I should feel at liberty to say or write about my story in whatever way I want. If I want to write a book about how certain revelations were made clear to me and about the interconnectedness that I see everywhere in the world, and I am presenting my own story and my own life to support what I am saying, I should not feel that I cannot or should not do so because someone told me to.

I am sick of these people who are fighting for social justice in one area while blatantly neglecting other people’s needs around them. So what is it? Is it because I am a woman who feels empowered that you feel so threatened by my ideas as to tell me they are stupid and not worth anyone’s time. Even if those are not the words that are used specifically, if you tell me that I shouldn’t do something because someone has already done their own spin on it (different than my own), guess what you are saying? You are saying that what I have to say is less important, less worthy of being put out there for the world to see, and that I am not likely to be successful.

But then how are you measuring my success? I have a feeling it is in a different way than I measure my own success. I hold myself to high standards when evaluating my own success at anything. The most important thing to me in evaluating my own success is whether or not I did the very best I know how to do. No matter what the end result is, I know that if I did the best that I know how to do (notice I didn’t use “can do”-because I do not believe I am really limited in CAPABILITY. Do I have boundaries in my life that may hold me back, obstacles in the road to interfere with my capability to accomplish my goals? Sure, but they will not prevent my success. (Maybe you are not doing it by the book, or the way everyone else is doing it, but if you are accomplishing your goals, who cares if you did it your own way!) I do not believe success is about money at all. If I want to, for example, write a book, I do not care if it becomes a New York Best Seller and makes me a million dollars (that would be a plus, though). I care about the impact that I may have made on ONE person’s life-including my own. If I want to write a book, that will likely never get published, but it helps me overcome something in my own life, then let me prevail because that is a success. It is a success for me on a personal level. Now, if I am able to help someone else with similar issues by means of writing my not-published book, why should I not?