I read an incredible article in the newspaper last week about success. The author was giving a speech to yet another graduating class and chose to speak on the importance of kindness rather than striving to be number one. Being a general cynic and overall smart ass, I ignored the article them first time I saw it (be nice, play nice, blah, blah blah). But every day for over a week, I seemed to keep bumping into the link - first on Twitter, then in numerous Facebook feeds and among the most e-mailed on my Kindle version of the NY Times.

And while much of the article was a bit to kumabaya-ish for me, there was one segment that struck me like a bolt out of the blue:

"Still, accomplishment is unreliable. 'Succeeding', whatever that might mean to you, is hard, and the need to do so constantly renews itself (success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it), and there's the very real danger that 'succeeding' will take up your whole life, while the big questions go untended"  - George Saunders

I've been thinking a lot about success lately. Does success mean the same thing to me today as it did in my 20's or 30's? What does it mean to be a successful mother? Can success even be applied to parenting? While I defined success solely as making it to the next level, the next title, the next summit of my career more quickly than the last for most of my adult life, I'm beginning to realize that this definition makes success an illusion. As false as the myth of the empty inbox or completed to-do list, when success is defined solely in reference to the next milestone, you never really get there. The mountain continues to grow as you ascend its peak.

The theme of success has seemed to come up on a daily basis for me over these past few weeks. But not success as I (and many type-A-borderline-OCD-perfectionists) have historically defined it, but a more pure definition of the word. During a spin class on Monday, the instructor read a quote. She said that we shouldn't think of our lives in terms of success, because what I deem a success may mean nothing to you. Rather, we should aim to make an impact, to be of value.

While my career and a sense of professional accomplishment remains important in my life (if only for my own personal vanity and a small sliver of sanity in the crazy-making world of motherhood), I am continuing to adjust my definition of success. I used to think that I could nail it down to a phrase, a mission statement or series of goals. But as my life becomes bigger and richer in many ways, I'm learning that success for me is an ever-evolving thing - inextricably related to the shifting priorities and particular crises of my life.

But there is one thing that I know for sure. At this point in my life, no one else is going to define success for me...

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