Addendum

I've continued to kick around these ideas, and I am sure that I will continue to do so for a long time. One of the words that I keep returning to is "success." At a different time in my life, I used academics as a large part of how I defined success. In high school, academic success was the path to the ultimate prize - entrance to a good college.

When I realized that I might not actually get into THE school I had set my eyes on, I crumpled. Having learned a little from that experience, I was more laid back in college. I didn't know just what I wanted at "the end", so I enjoyed the ride. I cultivated aspects of my life beyond the classroom and organized sports. I got involved in a very cool non-profit, I formed amazing friendships, I got to know a city, I took up running, I worked, and I fell in love. At the same time, classes were engaging, my peers stimulating, the professors excellent and good grades followed. Academic performance continued to provide ample personal satisfaction, and the recognition allowed me to stamp my resume with something that could quickly signal to potential employers that I had a brain.

But as you wise readers know, GPA doesn't get you very far outside Ivy-covered walls. This has left me with more room than ever to rethink and refine success. Being the person I am, I like to have goals, things to look forward to, things that present challenges, things that expand me. In fact, right now I'm looking at the possibility of hopping back into academia where I could comfortably fall back on defining success by the grades I get, but that definition seems flat now. Likewise the idea of busting through some glass ceiling. This doesn't have to mean that I'm less ambitious or high-achieving. I would like to feel that I'm accomplishing something in the world professionally and engaging in and enjoying the process - but that doesn't have to mean being the top of the class, or climbing the corporate ladder fastest. As opposed to "recognition" or "riches",I think my definition of success is starting to resonnate more harmoniously with the word "richness" - as in depth and dimension.

That said, it's still tempting and easy to fall back on the quantifiable ways of characterizing success. In writing this, I suppose that one of my hopes is that as I continue to roll these ideas around in my head, I gradually smooth some new grooves of thinking about success that are more in tune with what I'm seeking in LIFE.