lion rebel

I had an epiphany this morning as I sat on the toilet twenty minutes after reading this post by Seth Godin: http://bit.ly/pZfssM. [If you're too lazy to click the link] Godin talks about success and whether or not one person’s success is more special than another’s. I read Godin daily because he usually has great things to say in not too many words and most days what he writes challenges me.

This morning I breezed through his writing – it was the same good stuff but I didn’t find it particularly applicable for my day today. But then, on the toilet, it hit me. I have been striving to be successful in the ways that other people have been successful. Set a schedule, read four books at a time, drink this vitamin water, take time to think, develop your passion and screw your day job, stick with your day job until your passion becomes profitable, spend time with your family, don’t spend time with your family, go to church, pray, take a weekend off, work your ass off 24-7. The methods of humankind’s success vary greatly and I’m quite certain I’ve tried at least 5% of their ways to increase my success.

And I’ve mostly been miserable. And truthfully [though if you think you know me you would not agree with this] I’ve mostly been unsuccessful. The “trouble” with me is I am an adapter. Throw anything my way and I can make it work. But the reason I have felt unsuccessful is because I don’t just want to make it work. I want it to explode in wonder and magnitude and grace. The dreams that are stored up inside me won’t settle for making it work – they want to soar and I want to release them to something greater than pitiful me.

But there’s nothing wrong with the methods of success of other people; obviously, because they’ve worked, some of them for thousands of years. And I won’t abandon them, but I need to learn to hold myself to a different standard – and I think, probably, so do you. It’s not about ignoring everyone else, but adapting their success stories to your own success story. We’re all responsible for our own success [except Katy Perry and Lady Gaga].