Silent Success

The cool winds of November keep us company now, flakes of snow filtering down slowly in the mornings to rest among the feathery veins of frost on the windshield, waiting for the sun to finally rise and melt them back in the low light of day.   If we’re lucky the temperature will creep close to freezing and maybe even above by mid afternoon, and every day now without snow that stays, is a success.

Remembrance Day is once again behind us – that sober, somber day of duty, when life stops and we silently say thank you to those who died years ago fighting wars on the other side of the world; the poppies and Memorial Services the least we can do to honor those valiant young souls who went willingly, never to return.  The bugler’s call of The Last Post summons the departed soldier’s spirits back to the cenotaph, where the gun salutes on either end of the 2 minutes of silence punctuate the eerie quiet before The Rouse awakens our hearts again to the present  - but we linger and hold the past for awhile longer, each of us acknowledging in our own way that we truly understand the sacrifices.

We’re fortunate to live in the time and place that we do – we know this deeply, and our blinding ignorance of the past most days is a testament to how far away we really are from those dark days.  We’re a prosperous society and we live like Kings; drunk with riches and endless opportunity, fancying ourselves important and powerful as we consume our way through life, still ignoring the plight of the underclass, tempting Fate yet again.   The lessons of history laid bare await us still – but we think if we ignore them just a little bit longer, then perhaps their truths will not apply.

We’ve become masters of this.

I’m wrapping up a project for clients who have become friends – the way most of my clients do – thanks in no small part to my need and ability to connect to the people around me, and for my work to have meaning it must be meaningful to those who will use it and have it be a part of their reality.  I’m learning this has always been my way, though I have either chosen to ignore this fact or had never been awakened to it until recently, in whatever medium I am ‘working.’  A sense of purpose I suppose – something we all aspire to have in our lives – many searching for it in deep recesses of the soul or in dark corners of the heart – many looking in places they fear it may never exist – many more having not found it seek replacements to sooth the aching emptiness.  Others give up and pretend they never needed meaning in their lives from the beginning, content to follow blindly, and patiently wait for their eternal rewards.

I’ve searched ever since I was old enough to understand and question that there might be more to what I saw around me – that all things were not what they appeared and deeper connections and hidden realities existed if you dared look beyond the obvious.  Creative minds do this naturally after all, taking ideas of things that do not yet exist and finding ways to make the impossible possible.  Asking ‘why not?’ along with ‘why?’ then moving toward the ideas with conviction and purpose.  In the creative world nothing is impossible and solutions to problems wait to be revealed – one only has to ask the right questions.

As my current project winds down and I look back over the details and creative solutions that happened to fall into our plans I am comforted by the process that works the way it does and provides what it does for those around me.  I’m given credit for results that happen to find me as often, it seems, as I search for them, and I humbly acknowledge my part in the process but am by no means comfortable taking credit for the results.  I am merely fortunate to be in the right place at the right time.

Writing comes to me in much the same way – if I am able to get of my own way things flow much more effortlessly than if I pretend I am the powerful author of the words on the page.  It helps if I can find the quiet spaces that nurture the process – for me those tend to be found in the wee hours on either end of the day – leaving few of those hours for sleep some nights – though I am also slowly realizing that those quiet spaces are also available to you during the most chaotic busy times – if you have the courage to stand silently inside and accept them.  I’m making a mental note to stand silently inside more often – I need much more practice in this area!  And oddly enough Life keeps providing opportunities for practice…

I am very thankful to have had the opportunity to work with my current clients and have enjoyed being allowed into their lives as I worked to create something of lasting value for them.  A mutual benefit of shared experience.  And really, that’s what I’ve always been searching for – and like my writing, once I stop fighting it; stop searching for it, it becomes obvious that it has always been there with me all along. 

True prosperity isn’t measured in dollars and cents or found in one’s possessions – no matter how drunk we are with material wealth – deep down it becomes obvious that the measure of one’s success is found within – by how willing one is to silently stop and listen to the reality surrounding them, allowing the connections to others to ground them and sustain them, secure in the knowledge that solutions and results exist to be found, regardless of the magnitude of the perceived problem. 

I stopped for 2 minutes this past week and listened to the eerie silence, paying my respects to those who paid the ultimate price so that I may live where and how I do, able to help others as I help myself, all moving forward together.    Theirs was a bloody hell compared to the troubles and problems we face today – yet they had the courage to stand and fight, the will to battle to the very end.  The least we can do is awaken to the reality that we have it easy by comparison. 

It’s November and we still have no snow.  That’s one measure of success.  I’m fortunate and grateful for the connections and people in my life who have allowed me to become a part of theirs, and who allow me to do what I do, to be who I am. For me? That’s a much truer measure of success.