Success Yourself
August 12, 2004

Back in my chubby high school days, I always had a goal: to lose 25 pounds. It was the Twiggy era, when the ideal feminine shape was as long, thin, and flat as our ironed hair. The skinny girls in teen fashion magazines were always frolicking across the page in their go-go boots and miniskirts, often in the company of a cute long-haired boy in an Edwardian suit. I could start frolicking too, I told myself, as soon as I succeeded in paring myself down to the right size.
But there's nothing like an all-grapefruit, or all-cube steak diet to make a person philosophical. My goal—the target date by which I would finally achieve happiness—seemed farther and farther away, and the path to get there boring and dreary. Life is short, I'd tell myself. They could drop the bomb tomorrow (an expression we'd all picked up in childhood during the duck-and-cover '50s), so what difference would it make if I was thin? And so I'd fall off the wagon. I'd start eating bread again, and peanut butter, and tacos, and nibbling on the ice cream and candy bars my mom always kept in the freezer.

As usual, the Universe had the last laugh. They never did drop the bomb, and I stayed fat. But a funny thing happened on the way to my long-delayed goal. Life intervened. My friends and I started going to dances, parties, rock concerts. Frolicking was often required, whether or not I was the right shape. I had to loosen my grip on my goal—the perfect self I'd hoped to be—or else I'd miss the party.

I still have goals, of course. (Although thank the gods, starving myself into noodle-sized proportions is no longer one of them.) As grown-ups, most of us nurture an ideal of the impossible dream, the unreachable star that we reach for anyway, the achievement that will confer happiness on our hard-working lives. The long-sought goal that will bring us success.

But what exactly do we mean by success? Money? Fame? Glory? Stuff? Most people probably harbor a vision of success that includes one or all of the above. People of my generation have been forever warped by the phenomenon of the Beatles, who had earned tons of money, artistic acclaim, and global celebrity by the time the oldest of them was 24. In the greed-is-good '80s, young dot-commers expected to earn their first million by age 30 and retire. Even now when the boom economy has gone bust, people still feel they have to have all the right stuff—cell phone, ipod, SUV—to be considered a success.

I don't pretend to guess how success is measured in the business world. (Although a glance at the machinations of the Bush family suggests it's not pretty.) But those of us who attempt to do creative work for a living, especially in these gloomy economic times, generally struggle toward twin goals: relative financial stability, and some measure of recognition for our work. It goes back to the age-old question: which would you rather be, rich or famous? There's a choice we'd all like to make! If you're rich, you can support your creative vice—art, writing, music, whatever—without having to worry about selling it. But if your work becomes famous, the money will follow. It's all good.

At my age, however, I realize that rich and famous aren't the only options. In fact, for most of us, they're not even on the menu. If we're not to go crazy with frustration and despair, we have to alter our abstract notion of what success means. The late artist, teacher, and beloved local icon Mary Holmes realized early on that her work would never be championed by the tastemakers of the New York art scene. Thus liberated from having to impress anyone else, she declined to show or sell her work, but never stopped making it, filling the interiors of her rambling ranch property with her huge, spectacular mythic paintings. Giving herself the freedom to paint the way she chose made her creative life a rousing success.

My drug of choice is writing historical fiction, for which I'm often told there is no market. But just as the chubby teenager I was couldn't put off having fun until I got skinny, I can't postpone doing what I love until I become "successful" at it. I write fiction because I can't stop myself. When I write dialogue that makes me laugh, or construct a scene that nails exactly the thought I was trying to convey, that's success—whether or not anyone else ever reads it.

The one truth that remains from my teenage years is this: life IS short. If the proverbial fame and fortune elude you, maybe it's your attitude that needs adjusting, not your career strategy. As Art Boy is constantly pointing out to me, we're fortunate to be able to do work we love in a place we love surrounded by people we love. It's human nature to dream ahead to something more, and we should never stop trying to achieve it. But in the meantime, we shouldn't let it blind us to what's successful in our real lives right now.