Lifestyle Success: What Does That Mean to You?

Sheep waiting for a train.  Look familiar?

I ran across the phrase "lifestyle success" somewhere recently.  Can't remember where. Twitter?  I googled it of course. (Is that a recognized verb yet?  You know it will be if it's not already.)

Lots of different things popped up in the search results but no one theme.  There's not a movement towards "lifestyle success" like there is towards "voluntary simplicity" for example.

What I found - or to be more accurate, didn't find - gave me pause.  Why not?  Why aren't there lots of places on the web discussing lifestyle success?  Isn't that part of your decision-making?

Seems to me that in this American culture, we've all spent way too much time letting other people and other places decide for us what lifestyle success means.  It's got us in lots of trouble.

What is lifestyle success? 

What does it mean to you?  Who are your role models for successful living?  (Is it really and truly the Kardashians?)


I don't want everyone to jump on the voluntary simplicity bandwagon -- it's not for everyone.  I like to think of us all as a big fruit salad.  We all need the bananas and the apples and the oranges, even a few nuts, to make the whole thing wonderful and good.  Lifestyle success shouldn't mean the same thing for everyone.

But we should all know what it means to us.  As individuals.  Where's integrity without it?  

If we don't decide for ourselves - each of us - what we believe to be the successful way of living (and the failure to do so) then no matter how we posture or pontificate, we're lemmings.

And we, as a people, will deserve what we get.

What did happen in Greece today?  Did they run out of money yet?  

PS I did investigate, and I learned "to google" is a recognized verb.  Yes, I googled "to google."

Image:  Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain