I spent yesterday doing volunteer work for the Space Coast Symphony Orchestra, preparing a mailing of some 2000 brochures to advertise our upcoming Masterworks concert. The group of ten of us gathered around the table, some folding, some adding address labels, some sealing envelopes, some stamping them all until the job was done.
Conversation, of course, reduces the tedium. Most of the participants are retirees like me, with time to share and lots of life experiences. As we fell into the routine, one lady took over the conversation, as she usually does, with talk of her extravagances, which most would call her financial success story. I will never be in her league, nor, I think, would I want to be. First it was stories of her 12% gains with her investments, her hiring and firing of invenstment counselors and gurus, and what she will do with her latest acquisitions. Then she told us about a 156 day world cruise she would be taking, and why she would be away for a while and could not volunteer. Of course, that led to the enviable questions from others about, “Where are you going?” and “Will you have time to spend in Singapore?”, and “Have you even been to Hong Kong?” and all the rest of the exotic “I’d love to go to Sydney!” comments.
I got to thinking about how one rates success. Is it financial? I think not. I have always had to scrape financially, and heaven knows in retirement, we are still doing so. I can’t dream of vacations. I haven’t packed a suitcase in the seven years we’ve been retired except to attend my brother’s last days a year a go. We can’t even afford road trips in our aging van. Nonetheless, I measure my success in terms of contentment.
I measure success by the fact that all our medical issues we’ve experienced have been things that, so far, can be “fixed.” Yes, the kidney stones are gone, Ev’s new hip is performing well, my hearing is at least somewhat restored with my BAHA device, and we can still manage to run our home, although not as efficiently and easily as once we could. We have beautiful children and grandchildren nearby. We have friends we love and who love us, and we manage each day to laugh at least once or twice.
I enjoy writing, and apparently have achieved some success at it. I’m currently working on my fourth book, and unless I tell the “whole story” in this one, may turn this into a series called Whispering Woods, about a resort I’m vicariously creating in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. I’m enjoying the journey, if only imaginary. And, I was just notified that my story submitted to the Reader’s Digest writing contest is one of thirty finalists. That is some measure of success. So, I just took a moment to reread it, to see if it is, at least to me, as good as I thought it was when I submitted it.
Here’s why I’m blogging on the topic of success. The last paragraph of my story “Rocking Chair Porch” shows the contentment my grandparents had in the little things, and how I learned to appreciate those things from them. Here’s what it says:
So, this all goes to show that I learned more from being on the Rocking Chair Porch than being anywhere else those idle summer afternoons. I learned how my grandmother kept house, how she loved other people without judgment, how she spent her time for the benefit of others, how she practiced hospitality, and how she did things on a daily basis to accomplish goals for the future. I know she read there, she prayed there, she crocheted and pieced quilts and tatted lace there. She spent hours studying seed catalogs and memorizing Scripture, and winning at dominoes and Scrabble there. And she practiced what Saint Paul called “contentment in all circumstances.” That, perhaps is the very best lesson I could have learned there, and at a most important time in my life. To Grandma and Grandpa, I say “Thank You for making me a once-in-a-while member of the Rocking Chair Porch Society.”
What does success look like? I’d measure it in my relationship with God, the Almighty, with others, and with the means to bless others. That doesn’t mean financially at all. That’s just how the rest of the world measures it.
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