What is your measure of success?

Does success matter to you?  It certainly does to me.  Late last year I came to the realization that we are all successful in large or small ways.  For some of  us our success is task specific, to some, success is situational,  and for others success is goal specific.

I have come to believe that success is as personal as a finger print.  My happiness and support of your success does not predispose me to emulate it.  Consider two men who want to be the best father in the world.  One mans measure of success may  be what he is able to teach his child to accomplish in the business world.  The others measure of success may be how he is able to teach his child to value and support people.   Each man will be very happy for his accomplishment and very proud of his child as each man accomplishes his goal.  Who is to say that one is more successful than the other?  No one because each had a specific goal that he achieved in accordance with his ideas and financial, emotional, psychological. . . . disposition.  Each man is successful in his own right.

So it is with us.  Let us march to and embrace the beat of our own drummer and be able to look ourselves in the eyes with reverential pride.  To make it more personal - 2009 was the worst year of my life; bar none.  However as the year came to an end I was very happy to see that I was still standing with my will and personality in tact - in spite of those who attempted to destroy both.  Last year, I was very successful in emerging from the rubble of life - a better, more seasoned person (in my opinion) than I was before.  I have a achieved a level of success by myself for myself that no one can take from me.  I believe that the same holds true for you.  

This is a rhetorical question:  What is your measure of success?