I'll Know I'm "Successful" When...

It's never straightforward to walk a straight and narrow path. I don't walk the Christian path, rather I'm walking one that I've been materializing just metres in front of me as I walk it for 4 years now. One that grows clearer, one that I can see farther down everyday. I daresay you won't see too many walking a path as unconventional as mine.
Having abandoned most of society's predetermined definitions of success, and as many of its destructive implicit assumptions as I could identify, I've been left with quite a fog to navigate these past years. Rolling your own road out in front of you isn't easy. I do it because, for the human species and the planet's sake (which, logically, includes my own), we need people forging new pathways. On the planetary level, if all humans keep walking the same path we will collectively proceed off the cliff at whose edge we are already poised (environmentally, socially, economically, etc). For myself, to give me hope, and proof, that another way is possible. This blog post is mostly for myself, to create more definition to my path, and to create landmarks along its edges so that I will know I am still on it when I travel past them down the road. Perhaps it will also inspire others to forge their own path.
I'll know I'm "successful" when... (if it says yes, it means I've already been successful at that one)

• I live embedded in a community that is explicitly grounded in non-violence, non-coercion, and a fundamentally generative (life-enhancing) spiral dynamic. [yes]
• I have ample capital of the most useful currency of the time
• no financial debt [no]
• In the short term, financial stability in Canadian dollars  [no]
• In the short and long term, abundant social capital (through investment in community) [yes]
• In the long term, in a currency which aligns with the natural limits of the Earth and local community [no]
• each day I see evidence (causation might be too ambitious, correlation would do) of my having impacted one or more people's (or other plants or animals) lives in a generative way. [not every day]
• the work that I do to change the world [yes] is the work that I do to generate my livelihood [no] is the work that I would do if I had infinite resources [yes].
• I am physically [yes, mostly], mentally [yes], and spiritually [not sure what this means to me yet] fit.
• my everyday surroundings (abode and place of work?) bring me (in an aesthetic and feng-shui way) joy, inspiration, openness, and connection with others and nature. [no]
• me and my community live in a symbiotic way with the Earth rather than a cancerous way. [paradigmatically, yes; literal physical impact, no]
• my friends, family, and strangers alike hear the name Connor Turland and think of a global leader (in the global Commons movement?) [no], and one who leads by example at the front of the pack, by pulling the hardest of anyone [yes], and not one who cracks the whip at the back [I don't think people think this about me].
• my wonder at the universe grows everyday [yes]

This feels sufficient for my purposes right now, though it's inspiring me to write a more low-level, immediate set of success definitions, perhaps to be met by the end of 2013. I'll post that here too.

I keep feeling that the missing piece of writing this, is stories about how I got where I am today, and why, at 21, these are my definitions. I'm excited to share soon a blog post about my participation in building the "new economy", that tells the story of my choice to participate only partially in a post-secondary education, and my choice to recently leave my job to pursue the work on Metamaps that so inspires me and has the potential to facilitate the kind of change I want to see in the world. Both of these turning point decisions are part of pivotal stretches of my path. The importance for me of writing this today can't be underestimated I think. Everyday around me I am bombarded with society's definitions of success, and even well-meaning people projecting their ideas about success onto me tempt me from my path. Here's some of the stories people tell themselves about me.

•  "You'll have to figure out how to lock-down the IP and monetize Metamaps if you want to be the next start-up that Google buys out"
• this one is particularly frustrating to me given how many assumptions it makes, but my frustrations with the modern start-up and venture capital ecosystem are a topic for another blog post
• "Well you know Steve Jobs didn't finish university, and look what he did" (the 'you could be and should want to be the next Steve Jobs' story)
• "Most companies won't look at you twice if you don't have a post-secondary education" (the direct 'you need to adhere to societies standards if you want to be successful' story)

I'll be damned if I spend my life working my way up an archaic corporate ladder. I haven't been able to generate my livelihood working on Metamaps yet, but I know that our time will come soon. I'm a believer in the social enterprise, where one can do well for oneself, by doing good in the world. It's been a lot of hard work already to get to this point, I know a lot of hard work remains. But I don't mind; my work is my play. What's your path?