The measurement of success varies from one individual to the other and for me, mine is measured by the amount of positive pleasure that is derived in the pursuit of my passion.

For a whole lot, their success may only be cached on how much money is lining their pockets and if that is the case, then that deep satisfaction and contentment that comes from the unquantified simple things of life will continue to remain elusive in the never-ending need to make an extra buck.

Even though it’s a fact that one must earn a living however, one’s success should not only be determined by the yardsticks of the greenback.

The past fortnight have been such bloggisatisfying time for me that I kept going to bed each night with a wide smile pasted on my face.

It first started with Ben Huberman sending me a very polite and surprising mail inviting me to participate in contributing a theme/prompt for the just concluded poetry class and believe me when I say that my heart expanded in extra warmth.

I had not planned to take the class initially, but I am so delighted that I did and yes, I feel proud to have had my prompt chosen and even if such an opportunity never arises again, this was a big bolster for me, so I am preening. Thank you.

Then Carlos a darling blogger sent me a surprise letter which brought tears to eyes and my heart expanded some more.

In no way did I know that those little words that I kept sharing with him had such meaningful impact enough to warrant taking the time to write me a special letter.

This totally reminds me of these quotes: “Encouragement is said to be the oxygen for the human spirit. Do not forget you are carrying someone’s air with you. Encourage them. Help them breathe” – anonymous.

”Make someone smile whenever you can. You never know how much of a difference you could be making in their life at that moment.”

It’s me Saraa topped my weeks sweetness with her own ration of surprise sprinkles and I continued to smile.

…And to complete my harvest of smiles, few weeks ago at the neighbourhood cafe, I met Lara, a lovely, smiley Filipino lady with whom I had a brief chat when I was busy scribbling and tapping away seriously on my laptop.

She struck a conversation asking me what I was working so intently on. I told her that it was my blog and she requested for the name, which I scribbled on a scrap of paper and gave to her.

Believe me when I say that I never thought that she would even bother. I just thought that she was being polite and that the scrap of paper would be lost even before the ink dried.

Well, I ran into her once again today and with smiles dotting her entire face she walked up to me and said Miss Jacqueline, I have been reading your blog.

You write and rhyme so well. I enjoy reading your blog in the evening. I am following you now and sent you an FB request.

I quickly checked my FB request status which has close to 200 or more requests yet to be answered *covering my face* and I accepted her request right there and then, but I simply felt like I had won some pretty penny.

We chit-chatted some more and I think I hummed back to my house or should I say tweeted back to my house in utter pleasure.

There you have it. I have seen a lot of magic and earned a lot of satisfaction this week. A good evening to you from Dubai.

© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha