Stuck at Success (without the IQ)

If you think my recent  posts have been somewhat less inspired than you’re accustomed to, here…  you’re not alone. Your favorite fearless mind blogger (that’d be me, wouldn’t it?) agrees with you.  Content has been puzzlingly flat this week. 

And I don’t even have a good excuse.  I wasn’t hit by the surprise Texas hurricane.  I didn’t have a truckload of political refugees land on my doorstep, and I wasn’t abducted by aliens or some anti-blogging conspiracy group. No, I’m just stuck.

The realization that I was intellectually vain was inspiring. It was a revelation. I took it apart, peered at its inner workings, turned it upside down and backwards, adjusted a few things here and there. I wrote umpteen related posts.  I hitched up my goals to the power-donkey of my vanity, and off we went…

into…  nowhere. ______________________________

It’s all YOUR fault, you know. Well, some of you.

You see, when you commented on those intellectual vanity posts ( or  sent me emails, IMs, or otherwise conversed with me about it) YOU kept mentioning success.  In a dozen ways, you reminded me that “intelligence is not success”. 

“Yes yes I KNOW that!” I responded. “I’m talking about IQ, dang it! Can’t you stay on the subject?”

Except… well.. you were more perceptive than I was.  In a dozen ways, my posts demonstrated a deep seated confusion between intelligence and success.   You recognized it (consciously or not), mentioned it to me (again and again) and eventually it sank in.   

 Your comments got through, my subconscious accepted that intelligence does not imply success, and vice-versa. Ok, got it. Good job, and thank you! Another puzzle piece in place.

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There’s just one problem.

The inner-donkey-of-motivation has realized that while appearing intelligent is a tasty carrot, a carrot seasoned with success is even MORE tasty, more motivating. 

So now the donkey wants to appear intelligent, AND successful.

Ok, I can deal with that! One success-seasoned carrot coming up.

Unfortunately, this leads to another problem. (You didn’t really believe there’d just be one, did you?)

I have absolutely no idea of what “success” looks like.

So stay tuned.  I’m going to need your help on this one.  I can’t even seem to find the corner pieces alone.

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 MindTWEAK: The successful man doesn’t use others, other people use the successful man, for above all the success is of service - Mark Caine
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