My Defintion of Success

Photo courtesy of thegrio.

I did I again. I let another month slip up and didn't post anything on my blog...I got to stop doing that.

Anyway, I was reading the current issue of Essence (the one with Alicia Keys on the cover). There was this awesome story written on redefining the Black woman. Saying that the story impacted me is just an understatement. I've been making moves and taking actions that some people throughout my life have not understood, i.e., my decision to go away to college, learning how to speak Chinese, prefering to read my Bible instead of going out on Friday nights, etc. Obviously, May was a busy and trying month and I felt myself slow down a little bit; but I feel myself getting it together.

As long as society's citizens have remembered, the American Dream was to work hard, make a lot of money and have a nice house, family, and car. Today, with the job market and economy the way it is, people are barely there getting by. For the current iPad generation, the new version of success is either passing an audition for The Bad Girls Club or being featured on Wiz Khalifa's next single. But when time comes for a Black woman to make decide what she wants in her life, everyone has already made up their mind before she has. But, "goodness gracious great gugga-mugga," let her make up her own mind and the opposite of heaven comes bussin' loose...

I haven't even read the book yet and I already thank Ms. Sophia A. Nelson for starting [or continuing] this conversation. Black women, as a whole, have been taking back control of things in their lives, like their state of spirituality, money, sexuality, and the things and people they love. Nelson argues that Black women need to stay connected to the people who care about them [us]. This reminded me of another thought one of my girlfriends told me the other day.

Quoting one of my favorite actors, Will Smith, she said, "Look at the five people that you hang out with the most...if they're not inflencing you in a positive way, change the people you hang out with." [Sorry if I butchered that]. Automatically, what shows pop in my head when I heard that piece of advice? Girlfriends, Living Single, Soul Food; in some way, these shows had at least three to five people who kept in touch, uplifted each other, and told it like it was when necessary constantly.

As I approach my quarter-life crisis, even with a college degree and making a solid spiritual foundation for myself, I'm still unsure of what I want my success to be. At least I know that by others making that decision for me would cost me the happiness that lies ahead for me.