The Success of Slow Mornings
Yesterday was my last day at my job at a law firm. Today is my first day being self-employed again. As all good masochists do, I started the day by looking at LinkedIn.
I saw, as one would expect, updates from my colleagues. I have managed to fully surround myself with people who are not what you’d call under-achievers. They are partners at Big Law Firms and corporate counsel at Big Companies. They have been at the company where I used to work for multiple decades now, and have moved into interesting roles with lots of responsibility. And I have a solo law firm where I mostly help people get divorced. God’s work, you might say.
Now, this kind of healthy comparison has fueled lots of past decisions, all of which have, unsurprisingly, proved to be a little less than durable. Most of them have involved quitting something that is almost really working (my business) to do something that would look better on LinkedIn.
I made the choice to move to a big law firm (by small town standards) earlier this year for a mixed bag of reasons. Some of them were good reasons like, all the people there are awesome and I like them. Some of them were bad reasons like, it felt a lot more aligned with other people’s definitions of “success.”
It didn’t take long for me to realize I’d made a mistake... Again... *she sighs*
It’s been really hard for me to commit to my business in the past. It requires me to trust me, which has historically been really difficult. But not trusting me is turning out to be even harder, and I’m really tired, so it’s time to figure it out.
I’m realizing now how important it is to be clear about my definition of success, so I don’t get confused every time I look at the internet. I figured I’d write it and publish it, that way next year when I’m like, I think I’ll go back to computer college and try to get a job at Google, you can just very lovingly slap me. Figuratively. Or literally.
So here it is. My two-part definition of success:
Financial Security
I would humbly submit that the aphorism “money doesn’t buy happiness” is total bullshit. If not total bullshit, then at least largely bullshit. No, you can’t buy emotions, but you can buy food, shelter, health insurance, clothes, reliable transportation, veterinary care, and books. And all of those things, in my mind, are prerequisites to happiness.
At a certain point, more money doesn’t buy more happiness though, and that’s the point it gets uninteresting to me. I need to make enough money to pay for my home (which is not cheap, but it’s my dream), my beater Subaru (cheap) and farm truck (not cheap), healthy food (not cheap), horse stuff (not cheap), dog stuff (not cheap), and retirement (not cheap). My life is not fancy, but it’s not cheap. And I like it. So I’m willing to work at least hard enough to fund these things, but not a whole lot harder than that if I’m honest. Not hard enough to move into the actually fancy category.
[Disclaimer: I’m avoiding the intense urge to devolve into a guilt-ridden soliloquy on capitalism and privilege. Know that it is in there making me miserable, but the world doesn’t need anymore of that right now. Sometimes it’s okay to just focus on living your own best life. *she tells herself sternly*]
This is the math part of my definition of success. I add the things and make my income goal accordingly.
Slow mornings, mid-day rides, and homemade food
The second part of my definition of success is the one I’m always forgetting about until I realize I’ve fucked it up (again). It’s having enough ease in my life to be able to feel like I’m living it. I love slow mornings that start with coffee, writing, and dog walks. I love to take a mid-day hike or torment my horses by making them pack me on a trail ride. I like home-cooked meals (been keeping the Mexican restaurant near my house in business lately).
I’ve been way too quick to let these things go for as long as I can remember. It’s borderline pathological. As soon as I experience a period of time that isn’t overfull with miserable obligations, I’ll do something crazy like change careers or move across the state.
But now I’m in my 40s and tired (did I mention that?). I’m confronted with the fact that life is really fucking short, and fancy isn’t the goal. So it’s time to affirmatively prioritize ease over achievement by making it part of the definition of success.
The thing I keep coming back to is that when I put aside other people’s definition of success (or, more accurately, what my brain has made up about other people’s definition of success), my little law firm where I help people get divorced perfectly meets *my* definition of success. It’s not easy being a lawyer, and it’s really not easy being a family lawyer. Which means that it pays well enough to meet my not-cheap-but-not-fancy financial goals. And it also allows me the flexibility and autonomy to, on some days, start work at 10am in yoga pants, and on others, to dodge out for a mid-day adventure.
The bonus is that I think it matters. I’ll never do Big Important Work by LinkedIn standards, but the work I do is very Big and very Important to the people I help.
So there it is. One farmer/lawyer’s humble definition of success. We’ll see where this goes.
