Success

What is success? Maybe it’s like pornography: you know it when you see it. Unfortunately, the signs aren’t always visible, and we can’t know if a person who seems successful to us feels as though they are. For too many of us, complete satisfaction is just beyond ever-moving goalposts. We’d be a lot more content if we quit striving so hard.

I believe success comes from meeting our goals, and no one should set goals for me, except me. No one else knows what I want as well as I do. Heck, I don’t even know what will make me happy a lot of the time. I’ve heard it said that fathers want their children to be successful and mothers want their children to be happy. Maybe. If so, how do we gauge when our kids are successful or happy?

When I taught Freshman Composition at Tulsa Community College, I created a course theme around the proposition in the Declaration of Independence that the pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right. It’s surprising how much academic research has been devoted to happiness, what causes it and how to maintain it. Most of the research concurs that there’s a difference between happiness and joy or contentment. That happiness is a necessary byproduct of success is a myth.

For more than twenty years, I dreamed of publishing a book. Fiction or nonfiction didn’t matter to me, until I wrote two absolutely terrible novels. Okay, maybe I’d be a nonfiction writer. I pursued my goal in fits and starts, but it didn’t happen until 2022. Could I consider myself successful when my memoir was published? Yes and no.

I never expected my memoir to be a bestseller. All I could think about was getting it published. Then, after a book launch and several book readings and signings, I discovered that talking with people about the themes and ideas in my story was incredibly rewarding. Mother of My Invention, with its themes of mental illness and shame might sound like a downer. However, I discovered that, despite losing my mother to schizophrenia, I’d been blessed with many, many people who nurtured me well. That’s an unexpected success, and I’m very grateful. I’m not sitting on any laurels, however. I’m nearly done with another memoir. My benchmark for success has shifted.

When I was teaching teen moms, I thought I knew what would signal success for them: graduating from high school with decent grades, going on to college or technical school, entering a career that fulfilled them, becoming confident parents, and creating a loving family. My students’ goals were a bit less ambitious. Most just wanted to get through their school and/or work day, deliver a healthy baby, find a partner to help them with parenting—preferably a lover, but a supportive family member would do.

I used to say I wanted more for my students than they wanted for themselves, but I was wrong. It took me years to recognize that my goals for students were irrelevant. I wanted to educate my students so they wouldn’t be doomed to poverty or any of the other potential ill effects of teen pregnancy. That was reasonable, but I had to be careful about going further. Their goals were their own, and it wasn’t helpful to suggest they weren’t worthwhile. Having a stable family and a job that put food on the table could be the extent of their aspirations and enough for all the future they could foresee. I learned to be satisfied with that. Their objectives often resided elsewhere, in their relationships and their passion for activities that gave them pleasure.

Maybe my teenage students understood something I didn’t. Most of the research my Freshman Comp students read affirmed the importance of relationships to long-term happiness. While I’ve been setting ambitious writing or teaching goals, many of my former students have built extensive networks of friends and enjoyed family through simpler, everyday joys. I’ve built satisfying networks, too, but I still seek out new experiences that teach me about the world. Every time I learn something I didn’t know before, I count it a success. And if there’s one thing my students taught me, it was to savor my own success but to keep my hands off theirs.