GBE 2 "Success"

Success comes to us all in many different ways. It could be getting your first car, passing exams, completely a degree, getting your dream home, finding your feet in a new job, even getting that first job or ones after that, perhaps for some just being able to get up & out of bed in the morning is a success.

Success can take many different shapes and for some it might not even be welcomed into their lives. For others though success can mean a great deal, for instance take Shakespeare: a man no one really knows anything about, he grew up in a world surrounded by illness & disease & yet that didn’t stop him doing what he loved best….acting & becoming a playwright. Now his success is one of greatness really, producing a huge amount of work that is studied again & again, writing by hand each word, line, sonnet, script & not using his ‘celebrity’ status to take over his life, hence no one really knows much about the ‘mystery man’. Amazing!

But if you look at today’s celebrities you see them flaunting their success with their big houses, yachts, designer clothes & jewellery, lavish lifestyles & the big red carpet events. Why has society changed so much from a time gone by when celebrities didn’t really exist & success wasn’t taken for granted?

Success for writers seems to be appreciated. It’s a humbling experience to get your first poem, short story, novel or play published. Writers are mainly hit with shock & then joy, plus realisation that they can add something they have been longing to add to their CV’s. For me I still haven’t added that I am a published poet to my CV…why? Because to be honest I keep forgetting about it. This is the problem you see, writers are considered outsiders, they are meant to be lonely people hidden away from the world. Writers are not particularly recognised in the ‘celebrity’ world. We are not considered ‘great’ even if some have had published too many books/poems/plays to list here. So for us success feels like something we can only celebrate inside, instead of showing off to the world.

Success for me though is being able to wake each morning & tune in to my buzzing fingertips & let them write. Even if I don’t win competitions or get anything published the fact that I tried is good enough for me & even if my star sign for next month tells me ‘A new day is dawning, connected to one of the following: study, travel, publishing, adventure or teaching. If you want to make a change or ‘shine’ in one of those areas, you have the stars on your side.’ I might still not choose to believe that I can actually achieve anything & hide away in my own writers world….or I could get ahead of myself & believe I can achieve success in something I have a passion for…I’ll let the stars decide I think.