Celebrate your micro-victories.

Our lives shouldn't be measured by the great things we accomplish but by the small ones. Think of the difference between a business loan in the U.S. and a micro-loan in a third world country. In the first case, you're probably asking for tens of thousands of dollars to open a donut shop or a jewelry store or a coffee franchise. In the second case, you're asking for a hundred dollars to buy a sewing machine or a cell phone. (The guy who invented micro-lending won a Nobel Prize.) The difference is a lot of money and different hopes and business plans. We can think of our lives sort of the same way. Either in mega-terms, with big triumphs, big failures, and lots of hoopla before the inevitable disgrace, or in mini/micro-terms, full of small triumphs on an everyday basis. I think I got my TIVO programmed today. It seemed to take forever, but after some calls to Tech Support, I'm pretty sure I have it running. A small triumph. I high-fived myself! Today I bought some stylish slip-on shoes to take me through airports (so I don't have to un-tie my usual shoes) at half price in a store I was just strolling through. Score another one for me! We all have small triumphs almost daily, and I think they're worth taking note of. Every time you pull off that difficult yoga pose or manage to show up at a kid's school play on time or treat yourself to just one doughnut after work, you've accomplished something. Congrats! So you wanted to be a great actor or writer or whatever and didn't. So what? Maybe you ended up with an accounting degree and went on to have a nice life with a loving spouse and promising kids. Or you ended up broke and heartbroken, maybe on the street. So what? You still kept writing stories and painting pictures and composing music (even if just in your head), right? Anything you do that is honest to you, intrinsic to you, is worth doing. Even if just for you. Life is lived every day, one day at a time. Do you like your life? If so, put yourself down as lucky. I know a woman who has a pillow that has sewn into it, "I dreamed my whole house was clean." She keeps it in her family room, where she has photo albums and all sorts of things that need to be organized and sorted out. Not to mention that she says she needs to have the carpets cleaned and the interior walls painted and the garage and junk room cleaned out. She knows it's a dream but, in a way, it's also a goal. Could happen. Someday. On the whole, though, I think success is measured not so much by goals as by progress. Is your whole house clean? Not likely. What about your basement? Your garage? Your junk room? Your junk drawer in the kitchen? Have you hung all your kids' art work? Have you got your garden ready for spring? Have you ordered bulbs to be planted next month that will flower next summer? It's not important, in the long run, whether we achieve our life goals, which may have been unrealistic in the first place. What's important is that we keep doing things, every day, day after day, that improve both our mental health and the welfare of those we're responsible for. Are your kids well-fed and ready for school? Are you well-fed and ready for work? Are you and your mate getting along? The famous Russian writer Chekhov once said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out." And that's where we succeed or fail. Day to day. The small things, the endless list of duties we have to perform. That's how we're measured in the end. Did you support your kids? Did you get the trash out on time? Did you pay your utility bills? Not everyone does. But once you've fulfilled your ho-hum daily duties -- no small task -- be sure to set aside time for yourself, for your own interests. Otherwise you'll go nuts just trying to keep things going. And measure your success not by some lofty goal but by the steady application of your will to those personal aspirations. Do what you have to do for others, but always remember yourself and do some things, every day, for that special person. If you're smart about it, no one will even notice. But you will.