You can’t always see success. via Daily Prompt: Triumph

Everyday I surmount innumerable tasks. Laundry is washed and folded. Dishes are done and put away. Kids are taken to and from school with water bottles, snacks, homework (completed), and supplied with jackets when needed. Farm book work is logged. Cows are checked. Dog is fed and watered. Papers are graded. Lessons are written. Friends are called. Groceries are added to the list. One task at a time I am conquering the world.

I am not alone in my conquest. Each and every person is successful in ways you cannot see.

Every time you buy a loaf of sliced bread, you are unknowingly celebrating the success of Otto Rohwedder. Rohwedder was the man who invented the “power-driven, multi-bladed” bread slicer in 1928. (Nix 2015) His bread-slicing success did not happen overnight. It took multiple tries and the determination to get past skeptical bread makers to bring his dream of ready-sliced bread to reality. Those shelves filled with pre-sliced loaves today are a shining example of silent success. When you hear the saying that something is “better than sliced bread,” you can thank Otto Rohwedder for that analogy and be grateful that you don’t have to slice bread for your breakfast toast.

While many successes are not as monumental, as say, inventing sliced bread; they can be just as ground breaking.

For many getting up and dressed in the morning is a monstrous mission. Finding a job and putting food on the table is a task that should not be taken lightly. Sometimes something as simple as summoning the power to smile is a success.

Be aware of the good, grand, and great things others are doing around you. Successes cannot always be seen and neither can struggles. Show appreciation for the efforts of others and you may be adding to their personal success and yours.

Your acknowledgement can mean the difference between their dreams being “better than sliced bread” and becoming “toast.”

Remember to be kind to yourself as well. Keep a journal of your daily successes. Take that journal out when you are feeling down and SEE what terrific things you have done.

Success is not always what you see. It is the energy that you put into living as a decent human being. It is in the intent you dedicate to your words and actions. It is the positive impacts you make on those you meet. Success is not always what you see, but can always be in what you do.

By: Melanie A. Peters

P.S. I like butter and strawberry jelly on my toast. How about you?

Source: Nix, Elizabeth. “Who Invented Sliced Bread?” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 16 Jan. 2015, http://www.history.com/news/hungry-history/who-invented-sliced-bread.