Success or Failure

This from my tumblr blog:

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth. You’ll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you’re doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you’ll hear about them.

—Bill Watterson

I think about this a lot, for all accounts and by most people's standards I am an utter failure. I took a few art classes, but never went to college because I knew I wanted to devote my life to making art, I have known that since I was 8 years old and have never wavered. I have worked low paying labor and sales jobs because I did not go to college, now I work for myself taking care of other people's houses, it pays well enough that I can work 20 hours a week and live, no extras, no traveling,  but it pays the bills and I have more time to paint, I paint from my heart and never have painted what was popular. I make very little money off my art, I am not in a gallery, though I have been in many, but never in a very successful gallery. Now on ETSY I may sell one painting or drawing every 2 to three months.
I have never owned a new car or my own home. Never been married or had children. I just never met the right man or if I did it did not work out, I kind of have sucky taste in men and for the last 5 years I have had no interest. I live in a small house with a tiny yard and next to most of you I live in a hovel.
I am not a success story, but I will tell you what I do have: I have joy, I have spiritual practices that sustain me, I have nature and furbabies, I have more GOOD friends than anyone I know, and family I love with all my heart, and I have integrity, not to mention my talent and my art which creates for me more joy than anything else in my life. So yes, I am a failure at money and romantic love and career, but a huge success at happiness :-).
I would love to hear your thoughts. XOXO