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Today is Lunar New Year and it’s always such a joyous day for me and my family. We usually have a huge celebration filled with amazing food, games, and lucky money. It’s tradition to wish each other good fortune, good health, abundance and prosperity.
Most of Asia is lit throughout the world between yesterday and today with amazing street parades and magnificent dragon dancing. And it’s also a time of deep reflection and contemplation of the future.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about about the term “good fortune,” particularly since I recently got laid off.
My whole life, I’ve defined good fortune, prosperity, success — all the things — in such commercial, material-driven terms of how much you make, what you do, what your latest iPhone model is. The list goes on and on.
All of this is so new to me — this idea of “failing.” I had, for most of my adult life, been wildly “successful.” At 32, I had quickly scaled up the corporate ladder and was a creative executive for one of the world’s largest media companies, managing a team of 15+ and a healthy-sized budget to boot.
I had “made it,” as they say.
Seems like all my Lunar New Year’s wishes over the years had come true, so what gives? Why wasn’t I happy…
