Success Doesn't Just Happen, Does It?

I have spent my life working toward one goal or another and I suppose each one achieved is a success.  I taught my children all about goal setting because it has always kept me moving forward.  I am a retired hairdresser and my career success was pretty much a given.  Why?  Because from the day I stepped into my first salon job I never had to go to work again.  I love everything about being a hairdresser.So my career was a success, though it didn't make me a millionaire. I only retired because now I want more ME time.  More time with my Momma, my house, my writing, my kids & my grandbabies, my husband and well the list goes on and on because I have TIME now. That wasn't a goal, it was releasing myself from needing goals. This, too, was a success.  I love having time to live my life under my own terms. I still over plan most days and don't finish everything I wanted to finish, but now I have tomorrow.  Having tomorrow is a success.

I never made a ton of money and I never invested properly or wisely enough to live out my retirement in the lap of luxury, but the bills are still being paid, so far.  We still have food and a little cash here and there, so I guess that is a success.  My husband will be retiring at the end of this year, he says, and then we'll see how successful I find this to be!  I may start looking for a job as soon as he spends his first month off the job.  The success of this remains to be determined!  :)

It's not a matter of how much you have, what you do, where you live that makes you a success.  It doesn't matter if you have one friend or fifty, neither makes you a success.  Your success, my success is all about who we are.

The goal I set for myself every day now is pretty basic. I get up, remind myself what day it is, go directly to the coffee pot and enjoy a cup while I 'plan' my day. But my goal is simply to be just a little bit better person than I was yesterday.  On the days that happens, I have succeeded.

Like most of the people I know, I am a work in progress and success is achieved in baby steps.  I think just living each day allowing God's plan to work for me maybe just brings successes I didn't even know I wanted.

Maybe success CAN just happen.

Jo

Memorial Day 2011

I cannot pass up a chance to thank every veteran and every active service member for stepping forward and saying, "Yes, I will serve my country at the cost of my personal life.  I will do my utmost to protect the freedoms my forefathers have fought to create for my family, my neighbors, my fellow countrymen and me.  I will do things I never dreamed I was capable of doing and I will be all I can be for a country that is all it can be."  Okay, that isn't the oath any military person ever took, but it is what they all have done or are doing today.  

I can blog from my wandering mind because each and every one of these people did something in their own time 'aboard' to protect my freedoms. I often thank service people when I get a chance or buy him/her a beer, if they are having one.  I like to start conversations with them also.  I have learned a great deal about the young women and men who are currently serving.  I have talked with so many of them, albeit briefly, that I have concluded the quality of our armed services is not in jeopardy.  Without fail, they love their country beyond description and they believe in what they are doing, regardless of what it might be.  They stand tall and straight and look you in the eye when addressing you.  I believe they are truly among the best and the brightest.  

I salute each of you today and in fact, everyday of my free life.  I owe you, each of you and you may call on me to pay up at any time and I will gladly do whatever I can for you.  You have my respect for what you have given and for what you now are...


On this Memorial Day, God rest the souls of all who gave all.  God bless the souls of those who served, came home, lived their lives out and are now home with their Saviour. 
 
I am one proud American who knows,  FREEDOM  ISN'T  FREE.


Jo

My Audio Book

I have completed 3 novels.  Written, edited and rewritten, done.  I have recorded one of them and am offering it for sale for a small fee.  I feel so good about doing this.  It's like, um, so liberating.  I am not sitting here waiting for my next rejection letter from a giant publisher who "loves my writing style, but doesn't publish this type of book" and not wondering what "type" it is exactly anymore.  I am  no longer waiting for anyone to approve of my topic or my anything else; I am waiting now for real people to just hear this story and get to know the Island Princess as I knew her.  You see, this story is based on the life of a remarkable young woman with more courage and determination than any other young woman I have ever known.  She endured and pushed forward when most of us would have thrown up our hands and called it a day.

I was thinking about the Expectations subject that Beth threw out the other day and I realized that I always have huge expectations.  HUGE.  I always want it all and somehow, I expect in one way or another, I will get it all.  I don't usually know what all is, but I will know it when I get it!  My goal is sometimes nothing close to where I actually end up, but still I feel like I got there.  Life is just one adventure after another and I await each outcome with anticipation and some trepidation.  Anxiety isn't something I carry around because I believe life is what it should be and all the worry I can muster, will make no difference.  To paraphrase a very popular prayer, "I strive to accept the things I cannot change.  Gain the courage to change the things I can."  So high expectation drives me to do both of those things and sometimes gives me the wisdom to know the difference.

For me, EXPECTATIONS = The best I have to offer.  My books are that.  The best I have to offer.  Maybe the worst of the lot, maybe the best ever done or somewhere in between, but the very BEST I have to offer.  Now I can actually offer the first one.  I am happy.

Jo

Too little time? Really?

I think I need a wife.  You know, one of those 50's housewives we sort of remember.  I have lots of things to do around here since I've retired, but they are interfering with my spotless house ideal.  I always thought I would have plenty of time for all the things I like to do and still have that spotless house, which  I enjoy on occasion, everyday.  Five months into my second retirement I find an endless list of undone to-do stuff and my house is still just sort of clean.  What the heck?  So, I think I need to find a wife.  They don't get paid cash they get to eat the food they cook and wear the clothes they launder and enjoy the house they clean. Yep, I need one of those.

Then I could have all the time in the world to do my fun list of things to do.  Oh, I would also really enjoy having one day a week all to myself just to play or read or watch movies or do absolutely nothing.
I suppose I can't have a wife, but I can have a plan.  And here it is:  I am going to whittle down this list of undone things and stop adding to it.  I am going to finish everything I have started since January and NOT start anything new.  Eventually, I will have SPARE time.

That's a plan, but it won't work for me.  I can't ever NOT start something new.  I always have things I want to make, cook, clean out, find or re-arrange. That's who I am, I guess.  I will always have more to do than time to do it and I am now thinking, as I type this, that might just be what keeps me going.  "They" say that we all need something to get out of bed for and I never have nothing to do so I have conquered that one, at least!

How about you guys?  What gets you out of bed in the mornings?

Jo

Where Is It?

So I am thinking today that my mind has way too many compartments.  It holds memories, plans, ideas and so much more that I couldn't begin to list all the ingredients that make up my mind.  The question, though, is: Where is my mind?  Yep, that's the 64 thousand dollar question.  I used to know things.  Now I think things.  I am often sure that I have it right only to be shown that I got it all screwed up.  Could be important or could be just something trivial, but it's always annoying.  I hate being wrong at all, but mostly I hate being wrong when my mind thinks I am right!  How does a simple memory become so confused or convoluted over time?  I don't know, but it is infuriating.

I also lose things.  I put things where I will be able to find them easily and then when I go to retrieve them, zappo!  they have disappeared!  I will usually eventually find them in some ridiculously obscure place.  Obviously, someone moves them when I am not looking.  I am thinking I need more security in this house.

By now you are, no doubt, thinking I am an aging woman who doesn't know she has dementia, but I think it is more likely that I have so many little things rattling around in my brain that I can no longer find a storage place for them.  Or more likely, someone has moved them, while I wasn't looking into some obscure place.  Maybe one day I will be able to Spring clean my brain.  Tossing out the old unwanted stuff and organizing the important or relevant information into appropriate compartments.

That will be for another day...today is for relaxing and enjoying my delirium.

Jo