Wednesday Wish (150); Sustainable Success

photo by minoru nitta/drexel.edu

We don’t see the air around us. It envelops us, it touches every part of us, it rubs us and caresses us, and we don’t see it. It finds its way into our bodies, journeys through our veins and into our every organ, and we don’t notice it. It is always with us. Seeping into us. Soaking through us. Saturating us with all that it is. And still, we don’t see it.

Every place I have ever been has its own feel, its own personality, a personality not unlike a mosaic with many different pieces making up the whole. This personality infuses into the air of their home, riding along like little dust puffs, the kind you only see if the sun shines through the window just right. I have not seen such personality riding the air, though. I cannot touch it, sometimes I can't even call out its name. But I know it is there.

We don’t see the air.

We don’t see the unique personality-infused mosaic of place riding that air wherever we go.

But if we slow down and connect with our inner selves, we know it is there. Because we feel it.

*          *          *

What floats in the air around you? What envelops you every day? What infuses you every morning? What affects you every night?

I know you feel it.

I know you sense it.

For we all do even if we don’t want to admit it.

It is always there.

Even though we can’t see it.

*          *          *

Are you not sure why you are sad?

Can you not name what makes you unhappy?

Why not look at what you cannot see? Why not pluck the pieces of the mosaic from the air around you and glue them down as colors on your heart’s map?

Are you eating more?

Are you laughing less?

Are you frightened or avoiding or lost when you weren’t before?

Why not feel-- that which you cannot see? Why not invite your heart from its quiet place, to sense, to recognize, to honor what you already know to be true.

*          *          *

Whenever I am off-kilter I know it’s time to go within, to visit with deeper intent, my heart, my feelings, my knowings that have not yet been given a name. Like the air around me, these feelings are with me every day with no voice. Until I let them speak. Until I let them be heard. Until I give them a name.

Some times it is home that most affects me.

Other times it is community.

Still others it is culture, country and even world.

But eventually, I feel what's imbedded in the air around me. I give voice to how it feels. I listen with my heart. And honor, as best I can, the wisdom of what I have always known to be true.

*          *          *

Success isn’t money based for me.

Nor does it have anything to do with power

Or title

Or prestige.

Yes, contrary to what the air around me breathes.

Sustainable Success

Comes from within

From my heart to yours

And yours back to mine.

Sustainable Success is a life of heart

Of caring

Of loving

Of connecting

when no one else dares.

It is raw

And real
And feels good.

And  . . . it flies in the face of what the majority of this modern world breathes.

*          *          * 

Listen. 

Listen to the silence 

that's never been so silent after all. 

For there 

-- there -- 

lives your own 

Sustainable Success.