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My family had no money or social connections with the music industry but I came to London and had some success that continues to influence my life.
The American Dream has always focused on building a better life for yourself and your family, striving for success, and even fleeing from religious prosecution.
I focused my life on things that are a little more dependable, like my family and things that actually make me happy, rather than momentary flashes of success or anything like that.
Success is a completely abstract thing - it has no bearing on daily life, family matters, the matter of artistic creation, but it can affect grace, and if I lose that, I really have gained nothing from success.
It's about enjoying your life. If you have no family, no friends to enjoy it with, it don't matter how much you have, how much success you have, how much fame you have, how much money you have, it doesn't matter.
If you make it anywhere in life, you owe that success to the people along the way who stuck up for you, or made sacrifices for you, and gave you a push when you needed it. In my case, those people were my family.
If I can procure three hundred good substantial names of persons, or bodies, or institutions, I cannot fail to do well for my family, although I must abandon my life to its success, and undergo many sad perplexities and perhaps never see again my own beloved America.
Success isn't about reaching your goals; it's about striving for things, like the joy of trying to raise a family, trying to be a successful singer, trying to write good songs, trying to be a better person. It's that old thing about life being about the journey, not the destination.
I've discovered that the standard all-American dream of fame and fortune is not success for me. Success for me is simply the joy of working - doing good work - and then bringing that joy home to my family. But if what I do in my work doesn't enrich my life with my family, I'm doing the wrong thing.