Monday, July 28, 2014

What is Success?

Anyone who has ever watched a reality show has seen passion.  Passion exists when against all odds, one continues to pursue something that one desires.  Passion for singing, passion for a new business idea, passion for decorating, passion for cooking, and it goes on and on.  The problem is that passion alone is not enough to make a person successful.  

In addition to passion, a person has to have talent or an ability to do something well.  Too often people are encouraged along the way because no one wants to be the bearer of bad news.   The look on some of those faces on television when they are told they aren't good enough can range from shock and disbelief to devastation. Unfortunately, no one had the courage to tell them the truth before they were standing in front of millions of viewers.  

If someone is fortunate enough to have passion and talent, then they still aren't necessarily in the clear.  They also need an understanding of how to navigate the waters to reach their goal.  Whether if it is practice, networking, education, investment of time and money, or any other requirement, they must be willing to do what is necessary.

Having passion, talent, ability and willingness to do the work is still no guarantee of success.  There are people who possess all of these traits and yet they never become successful in their pursuit, because luck plays a role too.  Being at the right place at the right time with the right people, cannot be overlooked.  

How success is perceived is relevant to one's perspective and a clear vision of one's goals.  Is it better to have tried and failed, rather than to have never tried at all? 

In 1976 I went on a high school field trip to McGraw-Hill Publishing Company in New York City.  I decided then, that I would work for them someday so that I could meet the right people and learn the publishing business so that I would be ready to publish my novel (which at the time was a science fiction novel that took place in the far future of 2010.)  After receiving an Associates Degree, in 1978, I was hired by McGraw-Hill as a secretary.  By 1981, I had worked my way up to Editorial Assistant in the College Book Division.  I managed the process of publishing from manuscript to final product.  (And we were really thrown for a loop when people started sending in manuscript on disks, because we didn't have computers yet!) I enjoyed my job, did it well, and got some great experience and an overview of the entire publishing process.   McGraw-Hill reimbursed their employees for taking college courses.  So at night, I attended college for English and Secondary Ed.  I left McGraw-Hill when I got married and worked for them as a free-lance Permissions Editor while still attending college.  A year later, I moved further out on Long Island and transferred from Hofstra to Stony Brook University.  I had several jobs after that, and finished my Bachelor's Degree along the way.  In my jobs I learned desk-top publishing and marketing and stored away all that I was learning for my future plans of publishing my book.  Then I had my children.  What can I say about that other than that they then became my focus.

For years now, I have had the dream of writing my novels and publishing them.  In my most grandiose hopes for the future, my books (www.thetinboxtrilogy.com) would be used in classrooms to help teenagers navigate life through those difficult years. I see myself going on book-talks to speak with students in schools and in bookstores about "potholes" and "generational dysfunction" and about making a brighter future for themselves and their future families.  

But after all of this time, there is one thing I still don't know.  I don't know if I have the talent to be successful.  This is why I ask you for your honest opinions when it comes to my writing.  Judging oneself only leads to an exaggeration of one's talent or an underestimation of it.  We cannot make unbiased assessments of ourselves.
So if  you have read this post to the end, I am asking you, before I send my manuscript out to be published and before I have to face the world, please tell me the truth.  Because if I am not good enough, I will be satisfied with "success" meaning that I completed writing the novels.  That in itself is success since I didn't know if I could do it.  

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