Daydreams and Success

I used to have these day dreams where I was all grown up, wearing some fancy outfit topped off with high heels and a designer bag. I was usually rushing off to DTLA to my job, where I’d end up in a sky rise building with a view of the city. I never really had any clarity what this particular job was actually, but whatever it was, it was the epitome of success. I deemed it successful because success to me meant being dressed up living and working in a city that was constantly moving, with my name on some sort of publication for healthcare, oh and the designer bag really meant I made it. However vivid these day dreams were, I don’t think I ever once strategized how I would get here either which in hindsight, is quite problematic.

I never had a clear definition of success growing up. Graduating high school, going to college, and then graduating college was the narrative. I think graduating college was the success for our family because I was one of the only ones to ultimately do so. I do feel quite proud that I was able to make my family proud, but to what value? I started my young adult life having to find work and any type of work at that because 2008 was a recession, hiring freeze, and everything else that millennials could have possibly been faced with economically, and that job had to have granted a high enough salary to pay back these loans that the government ultimately will own. I think it is understood that we shouldn’t be starting out our young adult lives with the whole world of “opportunity” out like this by any means. Tell me how it makes sense to award humans without a fully developed frontal lobe, hundreds and thousands of dollars in loans with interest rates higher than the moon putting them in debt, but not award these same humans a home loan to set up their financial future of investments. Do you ever ask questions about how or why the narrative here has become so scewed and why we’ve eaten it up like candy?

The American dream is a product and we are consumers. Prove me wrong.

It wasn’t until I really started asking uncomfortable questions about what success looks like to me after having my first son. The way you grind after having a child is immeasurable. We will never really know grind until we are working for someone else’s well-being and future. We hustled. I went back to work outside of the home when he was 1 and my husband went to nursing school full-time and it was my job to support the family and our household. My definition of success was shifting with the collection of these moments and I hadn’t even realized it.

My daydreams shifted from that high powered woman to a woman at home with her son making every one of his meals and snacks reading the books, and taking the walks. This woman to me, was still high powered. The shift was every so slight but I woke up in a daydream one day sitting at my desk and realized this. was. not. it. My new dream consisted of my own business, educating on my terms, on my time, still serving my needs and desire to succeed. Success now was draped in autonomy and the ability to stretch my creative muscle.

I like to think of success as a fluid experience that is constantly moving and shifting. It’s not linear by any means, yet it lends itself to anyone who seeks to define it for themselves. We have the ability to experience this fluidity daily with simple habits we create for ourselves, our families and, if the mood strikes, even a little daydreaming.

X,

Gi