Are you annoyed having to learn the most important lessons so many times over? I recently discovered, not for the first time, the secret of success.
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The temperature is perfect but we all forget to say ‘long may it last’.
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Picture the scene: a classic Autumn barbeque, a dozen or so friends on our roof deck talking about the weather. This was a few weeks ago before the storms hit. Suddenly everyone was talking about how the temperature was perfect, the ocean is at its warmest, the sky blue but not burning. Of course we all forgot to say ‘long may it last’.
Anyway, the whole gang was there and then some. Tom’s sister, Una, was over from Germany, and he’d brought her along, which was fascinating for the rest of us. Who could have shared the childhood that made Tom turn out that way?
“I hate Frankfurt,” Una tells me over a plate of meat. “I hate the city, I hate the people, I hate the work. The only good thing about Frankfurt, it’s a great city to get out of. You can be anywhere in Europe in two hours. I go away every weekend.” She pulls a face and I wonder if her lamb-chop is overcooked. “But then every Sunday evening I have to go back again.”
The current Mr. Gillmore calls me away to the smoking barbeque and by the time I’m back in mingle-mode, Una is whispering in the corner with Michael’s wife, Michelle. I know both of them are desperately trying for kids, and I suspect that’s what they’re discussing. I leave them to it, finding Tom and Michael next to the eskies.
She’s very successful. Hugely so, makes the rest of the family sick.
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“Yeah” Tom’s saying quietly. “She’s very successful. Hugely so, makes the rest of the familiy sick.”
I ask him who he’s talking about and he nods towards Una, now with one arm around Michelle and nodding intently.
“Really?” I say. “She told me she hates her job, hates the city she lives in and has next to no social life. She’s trying for kids alone because she’s given up ever forming a healthy long-term relationship. How is that successful?”
“Oh get off your high-horse.” Mikey says it to me but he’s looking at Michelle to check she’s ok. “You know what he means. He means she’s done well at work. In fact,” he sighs and turns to look around the roof, “it’s that kind of crowd. Apart from me of course.”
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“What about me?” I ask.
“Oh, you don’t count” Mikey reaches past me for a beer. “You could have a big job if you wanted one. And your book’s coming out soon, knowing your luck, it’ll sell millions.”
“And if it doesn’t, then I’m not successful?”
Mikey is saved from having to answer by Andrew wandering over, also looking for a beer. He asks what we’re talking about.
“Success” says Michael. “Or the lack of it.”
Andrew makes a noise like a horse. “Yeah, well I know all about the ‘lack of it’ part.”
I’m doing it too: confusing money with success.
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Michael and I stare at him. Andrew makes easily twice as much as everyone else here combined (except maybe Una of course). Then I catch myself. I’m doing it too: confusing money and status with success. So is Mikey by the look of it. He opens his beer with an aggressive flick and lets the cap arc into the air and bounce off Andrew’s chest.
“Mate, are you seriously going to stand next to me and say you don’t know anything about success?”
Andrew looks over at Michelle and apologises, asking quietly if there’s no good news yet.
“I don’t mean that” says Mikey. “I mean your job.”
“You love your job” says Andrew. (This is true. Michael’s a kitchen-fitter, the kind you get referred to if your kitchen costs more than my apartment.) “You’re always going about how you can pick your work, choose your hours, do what you’re best at bla bla bla. You said you went surfing every afternoon last week.”
“Can we stop talking about success in terms of work?” I say. “Mikey, how long have you and Michelle been together? Fifteen years?”
“Seventeen.”
“And you’re still together, still in love. Mate, that is incredibly successful, especially bearing in mind how you met.”
We all lean in closer together as I whisper this last line. None of us are supposed to know how Michael and Michelle met. As if by magic, Lauchlan appears.
“What are you lot talking about, what’s going on?”
◊♦◊
Instinctively I look around to see where Lauchlan’s girlfriend Annia is. Left alone, I’m worried she’ll be tearing leaves off my favourite plants or spitting onto my neighbours below. But it’s worse than that. She and the current Mr. Gillmore are in fits of laughter over by the barbeque. I resist the urge to go and split them up.
“We’re talking about success” says Michael. “How it’s nothing to do with money or job status apparently. So Andrew’s not supposed to care if he doesn’t get promoted; Tom’s not supposed to care if his business fails; I’m not supposed to care if I’ll never earn as much as you lot; and Ged won’t care if his book never sells. And you…” He’s momentarily stumped as Lauchie stares at him with his big blue eyes. “You’re not supposed to care if your trust fund runs out. Because it’s nothing to do with money.”
“Or” I say “If we’re talking about success, then Andrew’s supposed to care more about his kids growing up happy, Tom’s supposed to care more about getting a girlfriend at last, you’re supposed to care more about conceiving and Lauchlan’s supposed to care more about him and Annia working out well.”
“Why do I need a girlfriend?” says Tom petulantly.
Isn’t the definition of success getting what you want?
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“You don’t need one, you want one. Isn’t that the definition of success? Getting what you want, not what everyone else tells you to want? Not seventeen watches and fast cars and martial arts and endless lovers and thousand-year single-distilled malt whisky you can’t pronounce. Not Gillette-man jawlines or Italian suits or first-class travel or huge air dude. Just what you want. Why is it so bloody difficult for us all to remember that?”
“Easy for you say.” This is Michael. “With your nice roof deck and easy lifestyle and not having to… you know.”
“What? Work in a job you love? Live with someone you love? Hang out with people you like? Mikey, if I could give you anything, anything at all in the world right now, what would that be?”
We all know the answer.
“OK, yeah, a baby” he says.
“And that will happen. You two will conceive, or at the very least adopt. And when that happens, you’ll have it all, yeah? You’ll be successful?”
He does that funny downturned mouth which means he’s thinking about it. Then, from nowhere, he produces the famous Michael Chan smile. “I’ll be king of the world!”
We all drink to that.
And then – oh so counter-culturally – I force all the others to admit that none of them, us, are so far from such kingship either. “To our success,” I make them drink, “and long may it last.”
It’s superstition and a fear of arrogance that stop us celebrating our success.
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Within a minute I’ve squatted down to touch the wood of the deck, Andrew’s backtracked that he’s just been lucky and Michael’s said you shouldn’t count your chickens. It’s superstition, I realise, that stops us celebrating our success. That and a fear of arrogance.
And what else? I don’t know. But how many people do you know who’ve got it all and never celebrate it? I’ll put my hand up if you will.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock