This new term came to me in a Word Spy email, the urban dictionary that is keeping this older chick hip… well, actually my mouth is keeping me hipper, by eating all the stuff 🙁  But I digress as I speak of my propensity to ingest (laugh now)

My husband and I helped to decorate a Rose Parade float last week, an energetically fulfilling volunteer endeavor. It was a blast, which, as you know, is my definition of a great life experience.

The team leader directed the volunteer ants well. One of her key points was to purposefully make the ‘TV side’ of the float look its best. After all, with millions of people watching worldwide, the advertising potential for an organization seeking membership was tremendous. Much was riding on that rose-colored line that the float driver navigated down Colorado Boulevard in sunny California. The float was stunning, engagingly beautiful, and I was pleased to be a part of the process.

I am ever and always a ‘process’ person and not a ‘product’ person. This shows up in my writing, because I am a prolific writer, without many publications.

I also spent time with members of the volunteer organization as they celebrated their float endeavor in an evening event. Most of them had not worked on the float. Though some may have written a check to support the flower power afloat, I think most did not, and I wasn’t sure that they were even looking forward to seeing it parade. It was discernable that many were into power and peacockism. They were lords of the wallet. I watched the success theater that filled the room and it made my heart sad.

I am glad to be different, apart from them. I am a volunteer warrior, eager to fulfill purpose and valiant process. I have one life to live and I am having a blast!

n. Posting images and stories designed to make others believe you are more successful than you really are.

We’ve become better at choreographing ourselves and showing our best sides to the screen, capturing the most flattering angle of our faces, our homes, our evenings out, our loved ones and our trips.It’s success theater, and we’ve mastered it.
—Jenna Wortham, “Facebook Poke and the Tedium of Success Theater,” The New York Times, December 28, 2012