For being so cold and bleak, February is a pretty darned happy month. There’s the lunar new year — with its joyful celebration of new beginnings and opportunities for success — and Valentine’s Day, stirring thoughts of the heart. It all has me thinking about the heart of success.

I recently read a thought provoking essay about success. The writer — a psychologist, author, and well-known speaker — enumerated his personal definitions of success, a list that, remarkably, had absolutely nothing to do with work, status, or wealth.

Every new author has two fantasies when they publish their first book. The first fantasy is that it will be a runaway best-seller. I imagined being interviewed by Oprah, or Scott Simon on NPR. “So tell me, Ms. Ingram, how does it feel to have such surprising success with your first book?” You really believe this might happen … for a while.

I learned, early this morning, that I am a success. A piece on NPR was relating how some wingless mosquitos in Antarctica survive under the most miserable of conditions, only to “awaken” out of semi-dormancy to live for ten days or so, mate, and die. In the animal world, the reporter noted, this is considered a successful life. You have reproduced. You have won.