Measuring Success

  As my mom was teaching English as a second language to her students across the world, I overheard her ask her students for them to state how they measure success where they are from.  Not one single student answered with something financial or materialist things.
  In the U.S I think many people measure success by materialist items, such as making enough money to afford their first house, their fancy cars, and nice clothes.  To me I look at success as something that I see in my surroundings.  I see it in my relationship with God, my marriage with Shane, our amazing daughter, and all my amazing close family and friends.
  Success in our marriage is the fact that no matter what Shane and I have faced in our almost four year marriage, we have managed to work through it and become stronger as a couple.  Some people would have pulled the plug if they had gone through what we have, but we didn't and that to me is a success on it's own and we know with God, we are more than capable to be life-long partners.
  When I look at my daughter's eyes I really see so much happiness, love, kindness and strength and I really do consider all of those items successful in knowing that we are raising such an amazing loving little child to grow to become an amazing woman. I know we will look back in twenty years and be so thankful she is the way she is.
  With family and friends success is measured differently because to me, each and every relationship is different. Making a point to continue to grow my friendships and my relationships with family by making more visits with them, calling, or even texting makes me know that I am still trying to keep all my relationships as strong as they always have been.  Those are all ways on how I measure success.

So a question to many of you: How do you measure success?