18th Feb - What defines 'success'?



We'll start with today's Friday positivity... After a week of cabin-fever, I'm excited to reveal that I'll finally be able to leave the house later today, successfully ending my COVID isolation on Day 7 after my latest  LFTs came back with just one solitary line in the window rather than the customary/dreaded two. To be honest, I've always been a bit of a 'George of the Jungle'. I enjoy living life outside, taking long walks, and breathing in the fresh air. Watching TV is something I've adapted to with more ease as I've got older but I still find it a bit anxiety-inducing when watching in long periods, such are my (undiagnosed but almost certain) ADHD tendencies, and I get cabin fever rather quickly. So even though I'm faced with an epic battle against Storm Eunice today, I'm quite excited about the duel and feeling the full force of what she's got to offer, on my skin, after so long indoors. 

In other COVID news, my sense of taste fucked off 3/4 days ago (on the exact same night the Tesco shop arrived, classic) and still shows no real sign of return (I was stood in the living room, munching a red onion like it was an apple a few nights back, much to the horror of my partner who branded me as 'stinky breath' for the majority of the evening), but I'm at least managing to sniff some familiar flavours again. Not so much the more bland/beige foods, but a whiff of Nando's Peri-Peri sauce here, a faint scent of smoky bacon crisps there, it's returning. Through these dark times, I've found myself hankering an unusual craving towards spicy foods, anything with real flavour in a desperate bid to kickstart my senses again. As soon as the taste returns (probably around 1-2 weeks based on my first experience of this during COVID 1.0 last year), I've already lined up a shortlist of food gaffs that are gonna get smashed. My local Indian restaurant, the fragrant scent of a much-loved Thai place in the City centre, and the Jamaican-inspired tang of TB are all high up on my billing.




I think that sentiment is actually relevant to life itself. Let me explain. Through textual interchange with a lifelong friend this morning, we mused on the (somewhat deep) topic of what defines 'success' as a human being, or in our case, as two adult men. We concluded that 'success' can be defined by three sectors upon which our species are judged. The first? STATUS. Job, professionalism, career, money, house etc. This is a tricky one, because I've personally found that this is the least likely to actually contribute to overall happiness (something I'll be discussing in a little more detail below), but whether we like it or not, the superficial and shallow nature of our modern society still indicates that this is a measurement upon which we define the 'success' of a person. 

The second, and undoubtedly my favourite, is LEGACY. Memories, things you did, places you went, cultural enrichment, social skills, stories to tell. There is no finer indication of a person's overall 'success' than by judging how they've chosen to enrich their life, or - alternatively - chose to let it fester by doing nothing, or sitting back and somehow expecting to grow as a personality from the confides of their own four-walls. This is where I refer back to my spicy food analogy. Life is not meant to represent an endless stream of mashed potato. Beige, bland, and boring. (And I love mash, btw, but you get my point). Life is all about colour, vibrancy, excitement, joy, euphoria. It's the 'spice' of life which we must tap into most frequently to gain our overall goal (I'll conclude this in the final paragraph).




The third, is PERSONALITY. The most important of the three success indicators. Being a good father, or son, or brother, or friend. Displaying characteristics of loyalty, honesty, being humble etc. If you can tick boxes in each of these three categories, the chances are you'll deem yourself a 'success' in the game of life, as will others. But upon discussing this theory with my partner, she made a truly fantastic and entirely valid point... That all achieving ticks in all three of these will almost certainly then deliver you the one thing we all crave, and the one thing which is the only goal for each and every breathing organism and life on this planet... Happiness. So the next time somebody asks you if you define yourself as 'successful', you can stare them back in the eye, and if - inside - deep, down inside, you know you're a good person, and you're trying to live your life to the fullest capacity possible, looking to experience as much as you can, on whatever budget you possess, even if you flip burgers for a living, you can openly state...




... I am a success. 




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