Success Is Not a Popularity Contest

Success is not a popularity contest. I heard this really amazing question:  how do you know that what you are doing is right for you?  The answer was~have someone hold your head under water until you can't take it anymore and your need to breathe overtakes you and you must surface for air. Your work should be like that, as important as your need to breathe. There is something vital about work, it is life giving when I, when you, work from a sense of purpose, a need to fulfill some kind of intensely driven internal urge to satisfy a need that only I, and you, can meet in this world, that's when we know we are on to something bigger than just working for money.  Lately I have been anxious about success and it's markers, as in how will I know I am successful? The money monster success has been feeding me lines about popularity, the number of people that show interest in me and my work and he has had me hopping from Facebook likes, to blogger, onto email amd then LinkedIn, searching for signs of success until I heard another voice that said "hey, hey you, since when did success become a popularity contest? Do your work, the work you love, the work you are good at and success will be yours". Here, the money monster success has become an ally, a friend that measures with a different yard stick. Success is services rendered well, measured by happy clients who return and I get to wake up every morning and breathe the air of being on purpose.