Success

What, exactly is success?

I'm 40-something.  Should I count success as (at this age) owning property, driving a snazzy paid-off car, never counting cents at the Pick 'n Pay tills, and being able to take holidays overseas?

If so, I'm definitely not successful!  Although I work myself ragged every day, most days it still feels like I'm treading water, struggling to survive, getting nowhere except backwards.  There are months where I can live comfortably on what is coming in - and others where I barely survive.  I own no property - I have one old Land Rover that is paid off, but am working to give the banks money for all our other fleet vehicles each month (as most businesses are).  Holiday?  Not to speak of in years.  Definitely not overseas.  Even a weekend off is pushing it.

So am I successful?

I don't know.  I certainly don't feel it.  Yes, my name is listed as owner of two businesses.  Yes, I have raised a child without killing him.  And yes, I have an awesome amazing wonderful man who shares my heart.

Yet still so often I feel like a complete failure.

I dream big dreams about how life is supposed to look, how I'm supposed to feel at this age (retirement is not too far off!), what I'm supposed to have accomplished - what I still want to accomplish.

Beyond that though are the needs.  There are so many things I need to have done by now, which I can't and haven't.  Stuck due to a lack of time, a lack of funding, a lack of who knows what.  A lack of success?

So how do I measure success?  The fact that I can still get up each day and go to work?  That my better half is still with me after 8 years together?  That I have a roof over my head and probably more food in the house than most of our population?  That I still have the ability to dream, to bounce back from setbacks, to make a plan when a plan needs making, and somwhere under the frazzled exterior the ability to create?

I don't know.  Today, I'm not feeling it.