Success comes in all shapes and sizes...
What first comes to your mind when you think success? Money, great career, fame, a nice car? Although all of these items are a form of success we often forget about the personal success many of us go through on a daily basis. The world likes to brush our personal issues aside as if to say “everyone goes through shit why is yours any different,” so put on a smile and move along.It may be true brokenness is no stranger to life, that doesn’t take away the internal pain we go through. I see success in a different light. The teenager breaking free from drug addiction, the widow who has lost it all and still finds a way to get out of bed. The girl who was raped at a party that still believes in true love. These are huge life successes that in many ways don’t involve anything material or fleeting, but come with life long changes.
One of my biggest successes was after my husband left me. The month before we had celebrated our third year anniversary with a cruise. All was well and he was my everything. He knew my greatest joys, and he knew my deepest fears. My most haunting memory was the day he looked me strait in the eye and told me he didn’t love me anymore. There was no love left in his eyes, and he looked at me like I was a stranger. Even writing this now I have tears in my eyes, not because I miss him, but that moment will forever have the same feeling in my heart. The next day at work he ignored me as if he never knew my name, when we had shared four years of our lives together. As I walked around the corner he was there laughing, with the girl he had been cheating on me with.
To this day we still work in the same company and run into each other often.I lived for about a good two years with my stomach in knots when I walked into work. I lost sight of my goals and dreams, I simply focused on staying alive one day at a time. Soon days became months, and months became years. My heart started to heal, and so did my confidence. I could simply look at my ex without hate, but with forgiveness. Although I have wounds that are still healing my success solely lies in the peace I have acquired through this process. Instead of bitterness I chose forgiveness.There are some who cannot understand this concept. My forgiveness doesn’t make me weak, hate makes you weak because it’s such a strong emotion.Forgiveness simply means I’ve “let go” of the past and decided to press forward with my life.This doesn’t mean I don’t have bad days, believe me I still do! My mom calls them the spiral of doom! I am able to see the success of my future because the past is not hindering me.
“Sometimes our greatest successes come when no one is watching.”