I am currently finishing up Waging Heavy Peace by Neil Young and came across a passage I will paraphrase (mainly because I can’t find the page to make a proper quote).
If you have a lot of money that doesn’t make you a success. That just makes you rich.
Since most North Americans define how successful you are by how much money you have, this observation may need some reflection.
I had to come to grips with how I defined success a number of years ago. People would comment to me that I must be successful. My gut reaction was generally – and privately – to wonder why, if I was so successful, so poor. As in lacking money.
I went through quite a bad patch for a while until I finally realized that money, having it or not, was just one way to measure success.
Being at craft shows in the company of other like minded people got me thinking about why I do what I do. Ultimately the answer is that I can’t NOT weave. Today I mentioned to someone that I had bought a Margaret lever loom as my ‘retirement’ loom and she laughed and said something along the line that when I retired from weaving I was going to be weaving? I said that when your life is all about doing something you love, why would you stop? She agreed that that made perfectly good sense….
When they write my epithet, if they say I loved to weave and pursued my love with passion, then I think I will consider that my life was lived well and that I was a success.