Defining success

So, I’m at a horse show, watching other people show at the height I used to compete at, and wondering what, exactly, defines success? Last week, I jumped tiny jumps and was smoked by tiny kids on tiny ponies. This week? Well, my vertigo and anxiety were so bad that I only showed in one class before I realized I was too compromised to compete (let alone ride) safely.

To say I’m frustrated is putting it mildly: being unable to compete at the level I once did, then not being able to compete at all? It was excruciating. It was bad enough to drive seven and a half hours to be beaten by pony kids; driving seven and a half hours not to be able to compete at all was crushing. If I go by any metric I recognize or respect, I’m a failure. 

But am I?

I currently compete at a level called “cross rails.” It is what it sounds like – X’s (see the picture that goes with this post). It’s a division made up primarily of teeny tiny kids with pigtails and bows peeking out from under their helmets. Little, evil pony kids.

If I flip my view of myself as a failure on its head, however, I see something remarkable: I was at my first horse show since I had major surgery. It took a fellow adult rider to point out to me that it was my first show since BRAIN surgery!! So, did I get on my horse and go in the show ring and jump eight jumps a mere seven months after brain surgery? Yep. Sure did. More than once, even.

Let’s define success: according to Merriam-Webster, success is “to turn out well” or “to attain a desired object or end.” So, did I succeed? As far as ribbons go, no, I did not. But I don’t think success should be so narrowly defined. Did I win all my classes? No. Did I get trounced by tint tots on teeny creatures? Yes. But did I remember to follow my trainer’s instructions? YES! And THAT was a success!

Can success turn into failure? Yes, yes, it can. If someone turns into a narcissist because of having been too much of a success, their success can turn into a liability. Speaking from personal experience, I have the opposite problem – I have a hard time maintaining success.

When I was a kid, I had a really hard time sustaining success. I could be champion or reserve champion at a horse show, but it was very hard to be on top of my division multiple weeks in a row. My success felt hollow, arbitrary, even. It felt like there was no point in counting on being successful because failure seemed like the only consistent consequence of success. 

What goes up must come down, or so says the adage. Is it true? Using my personal experience as the proverbial Guinea pig, yes, it’s true. Everybody has their ups and downs. No one is immune to failure. And some of our best lessons are learned through failure.

Some people give up when they fail; others redouble their efforts to succeed. Human nature urges us to try harder when we fail – survival of the fittest and all. Those of us who give up self-selecting ourselves out of the gene pool Darwinian style. 

Drawing on my personal experience with horses, winning all the time – save for random phenoms and GOATs – is not the rule, but the exception. A hard lesson for children to learn is failure; sometimes, learning how to succeed with one’s grace and dignity intact is just as difficult.

In an environment where children receive participation trophies for every last little contest possible, no one is made to feel like a loser anymore. In the horse show world, however, you get ribbons for first through sixth place (sometimes through eighth). Those who participate in equestrian sports (and other rank-based sports) learn to win AND to lose, and, no, there are no participation trophies in equine sports.

It's easy to feel on top of things when you’re winning at something (fill in the blank with a relevant activity); when you’re failing, getting back up suddenly seems impossible. The horse shows (or substitute another juried activity) definitely made me understand what it takes to succeed: hard work – work on what is going wrong, reinforce what is going well, and add a large dollop of ballsy courage. 

I believe strongly that winning and losing can be equally as difficult. Why, you ask? It’s relatively easy to congratulate the winner; however, if you win with any consistency, you may find it increasingly difficult to know what to say to those who are earning the ribbons for 2nd through 6th place. Success, gentle reader, comes at a cost: you must accept that there will be people who will not like you, people who discount your successes, and people who are jealous of you. To really, truly succeed at something, you must first understand and experience failure. Then and only then can we appreciate success.

For me, the most difficult aspect of failing is that the Beast tightens its grasp on me to the point where I don’t feel like I can breathe. And if that’s not cruel enough, when I am succeeding at something, the Beast is there to remind me that I won’t always succeed – that I will, indeed, fail. Ultimately, we will all succeed, and we will all fail. It’s our job to keep the Beast that is suicidality at bay by recognizing that life is a patchwork of our successes, failures, good decisions, and bad. We are all amalgams.  

The words the Beast screams at me, on repeat: Worthless, Useless, Hopeless, Failure. Part of me recognizes that the fact that they continue to exist at all is due to the fact I let them hold court in the space between my ears. That realization – that much of my second-guessing myself comes from within – doesn’t make the negative chatter go away, per se, but it has quieted them down a LOT. And for that, I am grateful.

When all is said and done, people are hard-wired to want to succeed (survival of the fittest and all). One of the most important lessons to be learned is that success isn’t always the end game. Sometimes, there are things worth more than winning. And remember, always, that you are the one who determines what success is for you. You are not always going to agree as to what defines success. And that’s ok. Success is in the eye of the beholder. Case in point: my being beaten by a bunch of pony kids could be interpreted as a failure – for me, however, just getting in the ring and showing was a great success.