So Young

When I was growing up, I was successful in quite a few things at an early age and got used to being an overachiever. "He's so smart/talented/whatever," they would say, "and so young!" I relished the praise and became addicted to the success. This opportunity was made possible, at least in part, by being raised in a small and relatively sheltered town in the Midwest, where I did not often have to reconcile the fact that I was not the best at something. If there were people out there that were better than me at something, they only existed in theory because I never had to meet them. Naturally with every year that passed, the world that I was aware of became bigger and I became a little smaller in it, painfully slipping from the 99.9th percentile to perhaps the 95th and on down from there. Every once in a while, like tonight on the eve of my 25th birthday, I catch myself slipping into that old competitive mindset and wonder if I let myself fall too easily from the top. Maybe I wasn't just the best in small-town Wisconsin, maybe I could've been among the best in the country? I'm not talking about an annus mirabilis here, but who knows, a better school, a more ambitious career path... did I let myself down?

Obviously these are fleeting thoughts. All it takes is one look into Veronika's big blue eyes for me to realize the following things, usually in this order:

1. Everything is not up to me.
2. Everything is not about me.
3. The success that I'm artificially pining for would only serve to satisfy my own ego, there is no greater good behind it.
4. The things that happen outside the résumé of one's life are infinitely more important than anything you could put on paper.
5. Everything is exactly as it should be and I wouldn't know how to ask for more.

I don't know exactly where I'm going with this or how to wrap it up neatly. I guess I've learned that the way you lead your life is more important than the things you can get done while alive and how that compares to everyone around you. Simple, I know. If I can spend every year like the past year--living my faith, pursuing knowledge of the unknown, supporting my family and suffocating them with love--I don't see how it could be considered anything but a success, perhaps even in the 99th percentile.