We went to the pier in Hanalei, spread out a blanket and joined the hundreds of other locals who had gathered for their own tailgate party or campfire dinner. Apparently this is where most of the residents come for a typical Friday night gathering. So we felt especially privileged to be in on the local scene without feeling like outsiders. There was a beautiful sunset and we had pre-made burgers, pineapple, and home-made pizza. Which leads me to the next new thing…

I would have thought to bring sandwiches or some sushi, but I have never given a single thought to making my own pizza and bringing it on a picnic. Our friend Jamie bought some home-made dough locally and just whipped together his own full-size pizza. He’d held onto an old pizza box and popped it in the car and we enjoyed fresh pizza on the beach at sunset. Talk about decadent! But it was such a simple thing. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever made a home-made pizza myself, unless it was on a Boboli crust, so I’ve got to give that a shot one of these days.

We have to admit that it has become a bit of a tradition to eat at the costco cafe whenever we go shopping. Well “cafe” sounds a little fancy- what is that place called anyway? You know the place- hot dogs, pizza, caesar salads, very berry sundaes.

Today, as it was the end of the day, I barely left with one slice of pizza. When Costco says it closes as 6pm, it’s not kidding. Even the guys collecting the shopping carts are waiting at your car to snatch up your cart before you have time to fully unload it!

We are not big soda drinkers (I’m from the East Coast so call it “soda” even though Jim calls it “pop”), but on our occasional outing to Costco when all usual food guidelines fall away (and when it comes free with you polish sausage dog) we get one fountain drink and split it, usually Sprite.

Today, Jim decides to surprise me and instead serves up a Fanta Fruit Punch to add to my list of new things. I had always avoided that stuff, and now I know why. It was sickly sweet, and I just couldn’t bring myself to finish it. Maybe if you added a little carbonation. Costco, why can’t you add Dr. Pepper for those of us who are not fully impressed by Coke or Sprite? If I’m going to drink soda, it has to be worth it.

The green stuff is the wasabi- the pink stuff is actually sea urchin which they ate on LOST but we haven't actually ever tried before.

If you have not had much sushi or other Asian food, then you have probably not had the privilege of trying wasabi, which is Japan’s answer to horseradish. A little bit and it adds a pleasant amount of “heat” to your favorite raw fish dish. Too much, and it feels like your eyes are going to pop out and you nose is going to shoot flames all while someone is driving a railroad spike into your forehead. It is delicious, but it must be used with extreme caution.

Today we got to try two new things, a restaurant in Kawaihae (pronounced kwi-hi with long I sounds) called the Seafood Bar (that we have lived within two miles of for six months, and have been driving past for six years without ever stopping in,) and wasabi mayonnaise, which is one of the more interesting east-meets-west combinations I have ever experienced, right next to beef sushi and the “Kill Bill” movies. Their specials of the day were grilled mahi mahi with wasabi mayonnaise or a French dip.

Having never had wasabi mayo before, we decided to go for it. It had a little “zing” to it, kind of like mayo that has been left out in the sun for a little too long, but without the fear of food poisoning. Seriously, I really liked it. I think I am going to start adding wasabi to my mayo at home, if for no other reason to see Beth’s eyes pop out the next time I make her a tuna sandwich. Next time we stop at the Seafood Bar, we are going to get the French dip, one because Beth has never had one (her parents obviously never took her to Arby’s as a kid) and two, because I am really curious what a place called the Seafood Bar can do with beef au jus.

We took a break from the usual today and headed down to Kona to check out the new Target, but en route we decided to check out the fish burrito at Taco del Mar, the location just after the Kona airport.

We’d eaten there once before and had a great experience with a chopped pork burrito, but sad to say this time we were a little disappointed. With a name like Taco del Mar, meaning “Taco of the Sea”, doesn’t that imply that they should have good fish tacos? Wasn’t my favorite, and made the burrito a little lacking. The fish reminded me of the fishsticks that my mom used to pull out of the freezer and pop in the microwave. Don’t we live on an island?

We love the service though-the folks behind the counter are always friendly. Our first tip off should have been when the server was surprised when he asked what our burrito filling would be: ”Oh, you want the FISH?” . Think we’ll keep the fish tacos to Tres Hombres in Kawaihae, and order something with meat next time at Taco Del Mar.

Generally at seven in the morning we have the beach and the ocean to ourselves. But this morning when we got to the place we hop in, there were 3 swimmers getting into the water at the same time. No problem, there’s plenty of space for all of us, right?

Now Jim and I are pretty new at swimming a mile (we’ve been doing it for about 6 weeks) and we’ve never actually been in a situation where we could compare our pace to someone else’s. For us it takes about 17 minutes to swim one length of the beach, but we have no idea how long it takes the average swimmer. So we have been feeling really good about ourselves in our ability to get into the water everyday and perform such a feat of endurance.

Back to this morning: We hopped in the water and we are swimming along as usual, when the three swimmers blow by us, even the slow one makes it by us with no problem! I’ve always been a little bit competitive and I have to admit that my ego was bruised a little bit in observing and admitting that I couldn’t compete with their speed or performance in the water. So does that make me feel bad about myself? Yes, actually it did at first. But as I got to thinking, this experience in the water made perfect sense in terms of how we deal with life in general.

Let’s say you have a goal for the future, maybe to operate your own business and make a healthy income. You might be chugging along and feeling really great, making progress toward your goal, and having a good time in the process, when you stop and look around you. Suddenly you see all these other people doing the same thing, maybe even in the same type of business that you want to run, but they already have steady customers, and their businesses make a million dollars a year. Granted there might be a thousand different stories for why they are where they are, maybe they started ten years ago, maybe they inherited the business from their uncle, maybe they just have an exceptional talent for the business. Regardless of the story-line, you still suddenly feel that you are behind, that you need to catch up, or give up because you’ll never be where they are.

This is just like in my swim where I compared myself to the other more advanced or talented swimmers and beat myself up for not being as fast as they were. Should I stop swimming if I still enjoy it? Should you stop doing what you love because someone else might be “farther along” toward your goal? Absolutely not! You can’t live your life at someone’s else’s pace, you can only live life at your own pace. Maybe that’s why they put blinders on horses…

Swimming for 40 minutes in the ocean really gives me a lot of time to think without any distractions, well besides the waves sometimes crashing into my mouth and up my nose, the occasional translucent rainbow-colored fish swimming by, or my passing fear of sharks, (but besides these things there are hardly any distractions!)

Today while I was swimming I just couldn’t shake the thought of how we define success. For me growing up, success seemed to be defined by working hard your whole life and owning your own house. This was pretty well defined and enforced through my parents, as other people who didn’t work hard were written off as lazy and those who weren’t working toward owning their own home were irresponsible and not thinking about their future.

Then after becoming an author and observing other authors, speakers and internet marketers, success seemed to be defined by how much freedom you had, and how much money you could make in as little time and effort as possible, which is pretty much the opposite of what I grew up believing. How to deal with these inconsistencies?

It seems that at the core of both of these definitions is a fundamental belief that there is one RIGHT way to live. Mentally for many years I’ve known in my heart that this was not true, I mean somehow I’ve made it this far- living in Hawaii, still renting, no children yet, so it’s not like I’m adhering to my parents definition of success, but rather than truly embrace the idea that there is no one right way to live, I sometimes beat myself up about it, thinking maybe I just haven’t “come into success just yet.” That when I am truly successful, I will have the money, time, happiness, children and the house- the combo of both definitions of success.

What I’ve failed to really recognize is that if there is no one definition of success, that in my own right I, and you, and everyone for that matter, is a success. We have been stuck basing our lives on such narrow standards for success (even though my standards may not match yours), and that it’s the definition that may be holding you in a place of feeling stuck, or guilty, or ashamed. There are so many different ways to live your life, and in order to live the life you are dreaming about, you may need to break free of your past definitions of success.