Is success for ordinary people?

Yesterday, I was just browsing through my Facebook page and stopped at a profile that was a friend of D. She's not a celebrity or anything but with almost every of her post garnered at least 100 likes. She is barely 30, not married, owns a business in technology (one of the few women in the industry), gets invited to seminars and talks(with other who's who) to share on her experience and empower women, gets featured in magazines and papers and finally looks every bit a head turner.

And I remembered thinking to myself.. "Wow! What would it be if I was her?" In my eyes, she seems to fulfill a person's idea of being successful. Then I wondered if I was successful.

In fact, how do you define whether someone is successful?

To a person with little education who yearns for education, a person with PhD or academic excellence will be one with success.

To a childless couple who wants children, any others with kids will be defined as successful.

To someone who has no career (or not much), will view someone with high paying jobs as one who is successful.

To someone who has never really been dating or have a loveless marriage, then obviously someone who has been lucky in love is successful.

To someone who lives in a small apartment, then someone living in a huge place is deem successful. 

To someone who has little money, then anyone who's rich (regardless it's old wealth or not) will be successful.

You get my drift. Basically, success to one is defined by what others have and they don't. In short, it's subjective, depressing and possibly over-rated. 

But the essence of it is, can one be successful still if the person doesn't love himself/herself? 

If you think about it, it's always easier to love others than to love oneself. To be kinder to someone else, to be more forgiving and highlight their efforts than ours. 

And hence, my challenge for myself  and possibly you reading is… Can you be successful loving yourself?

I'm not saying the world should be a more selfish place by putting oneself over others, but to be kinder to oneself.

I take baby steps in loving myself.. and some can be as bimbotic as it is… but hey, at least I'm being nice to myself.

One of the best things I learn from my kids is to see myself in their eyes. Like when I think I look like a piece of crap, Julian comes up to me and says I'm more beautiful than the girl on the magazine. On days when I feel lousy, Julian comes and sits beside me and want to spend time with me.. and ONLY me. On days when I am unsure if I'm getting this parenting thing right, my kids tell me that they won't want another mummy but me. 

Even if I am not defined as successful in the eyes of the world, my kids think otherwise and the irony is, sometimes they want to be like me! 

I suppose we can only appreciate success when we truly appreciate and love ourselves. With whatever you have, it's a success already. Go out and celebrate that… with a little love for yourself. :)