I feel like most people have a ‘remember when…’ story that their friends are bored of them re-telling at every opportunity and any gathering. Mine is my ski season. Every time I say it I can almost feel the plummy tones that should be sharing it along with stories from ‘my gap yah’. Only I’m not a white, English descendent of landed gentry, and I did my own season a decade later than most people do.
Over the years I’ve been plagued by a sense that I am somehow running late or behind. In fact, I used to have recurring dreams where various versions of this fear took place. Sometimes I would be in an exam hall, not having realised I had a test and therefore wholly unprepared. In others I would be running late for a flight and panicking about not having packed for it. In every dream I would feel complete panic about what was to come and worrying that I would somehow miss it; whatever the “it” was.
And watching every 30-something superstar feels jarring when I do a success comparison
Social media has exacerbated this by giving me unrequested insight into the lives of not just my friends but also the rich and famous who may happen to be the same age. I’m famously (at least in my circles) off-line when it comes to social media so the only time I come across these kinds of posts is through work. In my role heading up a women’s brand for a Christian media company, a lot of what we publish looks at trending content and trending people on the Internet. And watching every 30-something superstar feels jarring when I do a success comparison.
This isn’t a new phenomenon nor is it something I haven’t written about before. But I’ve recently heard of a new expression: Success evangelism. And I think this speaks volumes about how we use and view our own lives whether or not influenced by social media. Embedded in many influencer stories is this notion of having arrived by way of accrued material belongings, number of followers and status. The idea is that this is something to be looked up and imitated. And why not? These people have (often) worked hard to build up their followings and audience. But this one-sided definition of success means that we can ignore other lifestyles or situations which do not scream as loud.
is success ever satisfied?
Having said all that, I’m not going the opposite way to insist on a retaliation concept: failure evangelism. The Nigerian in me will not allow that. But thinking you’re a failure is a pretty hard line to take and thinking you’re a success comes with more than a little hubris. And on that note, is success ever satisfied? Or is it simply a chasing of the wind (Ecclesiastes 6:9)?
How about taking simply stock of where you are and choosing what you can do to get you to where you want to go next?
Back to my ski season.
A friend said recently that her colleague, now in his 50s, said he wished he had done a ski season. And my response to that would be, what’s stopping you? When I did mine, I was working for a charity with no policy in place for any kind of temporary break from work so first I had to pitch the whole idea of a sabbatical to my Board and then was only able to do it by taking an unpaid 6-month sabbatical for work. At 50, this man who works in a law firm, has surely put in the hours can surely get paid time off to do the same?
I don’t necessarily believe that ‘it’s never too late’ to do anything… but I also do think it’s never too late to start. So go on, start something today, and keep it moving!
Tola x
I’m the editor and creative director at Premier Woman Alive and co-host of the YouTube show Sisterhood. In 2019, I delivered a TEDx Talk on Debunking the Myth of Success and my first book, 'Still Standing:100 Lessons From An 'Unsuccessful' Life' (SPCK) is out now.
I love this. When you say a 'ski season' were you working there, or just skiing every day? I have never skied (yes, I had to look up the past tense of 'ski'), and the whole idea intimidates me - I like the idea of hot chocolate in a ski lodge, though!
I agree wholeheartedly about being on your own timeline. I finally received a bachelors in my late 30s, and now a masters in my early 40s - I feel very 'behind', almost apologetically so, yet who am I measuring myself against? To continually measure yourself against others (something I am guilty of myself) means to live in regret.