Star Quality
I’ve been thinking about this “we’re going to make you a star, Mary Nack!” The assumption, of course, is that I WANT to be a star - or that I’m not one already (at least in my own mind). My best friend, who is a successful business owner and who doubled as a mentor when I owned mine, said something interesting to me the other day. We were talking about his son-in-law and how not everyone has the same definition of success that he and I do: ”you can’t be too thin or too rich”. I find that the younger generation particularly doesn’t share our definition of success. Baby boomers are notorious work-aholics and we are all about chasing the almighty dollar. (I wonder if that’s a result of being raised by survivors of The Great Depression?) The GenX crowd seems to understand intuitively that friends and family are more important. They learned that lesson by being raised as latch-key children as a necessity of us working ourselves into the ground and, at the end of the day, having no energy left over for them.
I’ve learned that I have certain “rules” about what has to happen in order for me to be successful. For one thing, it has to be earned through hard work. If it comes too easily, then it doesn’t feel right. Why should it have to be so difficult? As I get older, I find that I am less willing to work so hard - that I guard my personal time more jealously - and that I tend to get resentful when work intervenes with plans I’ve made in my personal life. Another thing that I find interesting about GenX is that they work hard on things that they are passionate about - otherwise… forget about it! There is much for me to learn from GenX.
The other thought I had was - where did that expression come from anyway - “being a star”?
“All Things With Exuberance!”
mary!
