Apparently, I'm a Failure

I have been spending a lot of time on Pinterest lately.  I haven’t actually done anything with any of my Pins yet but I have a great collection of inspiring ideas should I ever get the time to pursue one of them. The other day I came across this poster which highlights (in someone’s opinion anyway) the traits of successful and unsuccessful people. ‘Cool’ I thought. I immediately aligned myself with the ‘Successful’ lady on the left.  I was just about to hit Repin when I glanced at some of the traits of the sad looking ‘Unsuccessful’ fellow:

Watches TV everyday – is there something wrong with that?

Fears Change – a little

Flies by the seat of their pants – most of the time – oh God, this isn’t looking good

Talks about others – only to make myself feel better!

Exudes anger – well, I rarely smile and SO much annoys me

I was horrified to find that I am actually a very unsuccessful person. How could I repin this? I would be a laughing stalk. Clearly, since I could recognize these negative traits in me (part of my journey to self-awareness) then others have certainly already noticed my deficiencies. I certainly have a couple of the qualities from the ‘Successful People’ side but they fall under the category of ‘Sometimes’ for me. I think the poster needs to reflect people like me a little more – the Once in a While Successful People.

And then I remembered this was a Pinterest poster. How can it know with its colourful design and stick figures if I am successful or not. It doesn’t know that my moments of crazy are balanced by moments of my own small triumphs. That just because I sometimes hide my kid’s candy so I can eat it doesn’t mean I don’t love them. It’s just like when I am on Facebook and I notice that some people have close to 500 friends. I’m practically a loser by Facebook standards yet I am surrounded by great friends. And my house looks nothing like the homes on Houzz but I am (mostly) happy in our home.

The poster still scares me a little and I suppose I will try and emulate more of the qualities on the green side than the yellow. Thankfully my life happens outside of the world of the internet and all its social sites  that think they know how to live my life better than I do. I may not look that pretty on paper but it all feels great from here – most of the time.