The Small Miracles of Success
A six-author collaboration celebrating the small miracles of success.
This piece is not just a celebration of 1,000 subscribers.
It’s a celebration of all of you who made it possible.
The authors featured here are the selected top five from my weekly tradition Threads & Gems, a small way I try to give back to the incredible people who make this space what it is. Thank you to all the contributing authors.
To the part of you that you keep trying to outrun,
I see you chasing sunlight with a hunger that never stills.
Your days stretch wide, but they never settle.
You never paused to look back and see what it was costing you.
Busy chasing, only to be let down by what was never meant for you.
You chose illusion over presence.
Fell in love with the possibility.
And romanticised what was never there.
If your success is real, it won’t vanish when the moment disappears.
It is an adorable little ferret that you want to hold close,
but it never sticks around for too long.
Aren’t you tired of running
when the journey itself
was always enough?
Waiting for life to feel cinematic
only to arrive
where you already belong.
It isn’t found in the zeros of a bank account;
it’s not stitched into the seams of a Birkin
or screwed tightly into a Cartier Love bracelet.
It’s glinting in the very fibres of our friendships
and scorched into our moral compass.
Success can be setting a boundary,
a stable relationship,
or making it out of IKEA alive.
The Marlboro lights we didn’t smoke,
Its smoke is different,
circling into waves
between white and grey.
The red flag we didn’t date.
turning the other cheek
for a non-existent person
who would dream with me instead.
The flight we never took,
after that trip to Greece—
the one you abandoned me on.
The fight we never had,
instead having a messy inner war.
The words we never said,
you being too busy
calling yourself
the knight of virtue.
The man we didn’t marry,
after turning himself away from the truth,
a guest at playdates hosted by shadows.
The mum guilt we never felt.
Piling everything within,
silencing myself—
growing an identity to free me
from the burden on my chest,
from the regret
to please everyone else.
When I listen to my gut
and speak my truth instead of hiding from myself.
I had no expectations
of how my words would be met,
I only knew they needed to be said.
Some days
those moments flow with ease.
Others—
I am fighting the patterns
my nervous system learned
to hold when it was trying to survive.
Like my body freezing the emotions
it couldn’t release,
like the air leaving the room around me.
My body squeezing tight
and I started to shake.
I vanish; success drove the wheel,
robbing me of any other choices I might have had.
There’s a tiredness that rest can’t touch,
a body that wakes already exhausted,
a sadness not even joy can disrupt,
a soul beat up like an old retired boxer.
Accepting defeat,
just lying there,
I drink, then I get tears.
There must have been some truth in it.
Forcing me to swallow
each of my dreams with the next sip.
At 4 a.m. every night,
with no resolution
besides sleep,
feeling like a barrier
between me and the next day.
Lying with my exposed belly
against smooth sandstone.
Late winter sun on my skin.
Feet bare.
I just dipped them in the creek
flowing with frigid snowmelt.
Both of these moments feel like success.
An unwinding moment,
feeling the sensation of the world around me.
I sat in stillness on the red rock
in that winter sun and meditated,
the Kali mantras rolling with ease in my mind.
The wind arrived gently,
licking my skin—
not cooling me,
but warming me instead.
My cheeks burning,
my forehead damp.
My feet,
unsure of their next move,
yet feeling every inch of ground
beneath them.
Chattering tourists,
kids playing,
the occasional jingle of a dog’s collar—
none of it distraction.
The music of the world.
And above it all, the rushing water.
Tuning into the sound
coming from the moment.
Today, I took a risk
and spoke a hard truth
to a roomful of strangers.
I, I, I—
the stutter of a man
running out of breath,
I didn’t shrink
from the responsibility
of calling out disrespect,
but I also didn’t speak from a place of defence.
He doesn’t surrender all at once.
Just loosens his grip—
long enough to feel
how tired his hands have been,
and how little they were ever meant
to carry alone.
Crying in public three times instead of four.
Leaving your bullshit at the door.
Not hitting my ex with my car.
Accidentally wearing anything Morgan Stewart would wear.
Telling a psychic my problems
and leaving them swirling,
chaotically trapped
eternally inside a crystal ball.
It’s texting
“take care”
to a “you up?” text.
Equally, the ability to stand my ground,
to rise in power.
Not as a tactic of aggression,
but rather asserting protection over a sacred space.
A smile dropping countless dreams
into every corner.
A spark brighter than any star,
leaving a drop of shade
reminding me of wonder.
The biggest mistake of my life
wasn’t failing.
It was giving up on play
that cost me my little child.
Only now noticing—
no one is stronger
than the One who gives strength.
A sign he is heavily encumbered,
hiding behind the typical superhero mask of:
“I am just fine,”
anything to avoid
the One who can take all burdens
and make them light.
In a way that allows success
to be found in small,
miraculous moments—
this is what really creates
a life full of magic.
It’s knowing that life is fine,
then not fine,
then fine again,
and being fine with it.
But even that fight is success
because I haven’t given up.
I haven’t let my stories define me.
Cold brain
in the freeze
flight might
take sight
just a fight.
Stone Wolf & Echoes From The Fire
Burnout.
Loss of motivation
and inspiration.
Weariness isn’t weakness,
But to move with the goalpost itself,
to witness the flow of life itself
even
though
it
drains.
Red days
Blue days
Cloudless mornings
like even
evenings.
The pat on the back
that I long outran
met me on a quiet morning,
replacing the noise
with a silent hum.
A wind arriving
with the warmth of the sun,
touching my skin,
reminding me of a simple moment—
like opening my beer with a lighter.
Sometimes it’s being on time,
sometimes it’s getting the right bin out on the right day,
sometimes it’s talking to myself like I would my best friend.
Some days success looks like wearing clean knickers,
and that’s ok.
I don’t know exactly what success means or looks like,
but I think it tastes like Ruinart Champagne,
lip gloss, and kissing boys I fancy,
and feels like using your pretty privilege
to get out of a parking ticket.
Choosing patience over stress,
relaxing into uncertainty
instead of trying to control
every detail—
every day the choices we make
and whether they are in alignment
with our authenticity
and integrity.
And those choices evolve
as we do.
The slippery soap of achievements—
those rare moments
when we can actually feel
the glow of its heat.
To taste success in any endeavor
is to know that you can do
what you originally thought impossible.
It means you have sought something
at great cost
and found it.
There is only yourself
and how true you are
to the spirit of the path
that curves inside of you.
There is no number
that anyone will reach
where everlasting satisfaction will be found.
A day win
a week spin—
success
in the worldly
mental mess.
“I
am
strong
enough...
I
can
do
this.”
What does success mean to you?
Your turn.
