She walked into the coffee shop swimsuit model thin. We hugged, then found an intimate corner where we could catch up on her life since she moved. My friend told me about her exciting new career, the beautiful house she and her husband had custom-built, and her children’s triumphs in soccer and music.

I sipped my macchiato and listened, genuinely thrilled to hear about her successes. As the sun shifted on our table, she finally looked at me and asked The Question. The one that’s spoken as casually as “Pass the butter” but which has the punch of “Are you worthy?” As she settled into her seat, she said, “So, what have you been up to?” Meaning, now it’s your turn to impress me with your successes.

Suddenly I found myself scrambling for words. I frantically fished around in my memory for something interesting I could lay before her, something to prove that my past year hadn’t been as boring as I feared it was. There was the trip to Hawaii! No wait, that was over a year ago. I was doing more freelance magazine work! But the most impressive names hadn’t yet responded.

I simply had no yardstick tales to proffer. You know, the kind that measure your worth in our society. The kind that revolve around promotions (money measuring), new stuff (status measuring) and physical fitness (pounds and inches, preferably lost rather than gained, measuring). In that moment, I felt small. She was bringing gold to the table; all I had was a pocket full of rocks.

I remembered feeling something akin to this a few months after I had stopped doing magazine work full-time to be at home with the kids. I was hiking in the Arizona mountains with a friend and she asked what I’d been up to. In the past, there would be a tale I could relate with theatrical effect. Well, last week, I’d start, I was riding in a hot air balloon when it crash landed in a field and an irate farmer with a sawed off shotgun held us hostage there! But this time there was simply nothing to pull out of the everyday fabric of my life. The funny thing was, I was happier than I’d been in a long time — it’s just that moments like lying in a hammock nursing a baby didn’t make good conversational fodder. The important stuff couldn’t be shaped into a good sound bite.

As my friend got up for another coffee, I continued to wonder if I’d actually accomplished anything lately. When I pulled the pen out to write my Christmas cards, what would I say? Nothing much to say this year, but have a happy holiday anyway?

That’s when it started dawning on me how often we deceive ourselves into thinking our lives are “less than” if we don’t have those easily measurable stories. When I listen deeply to my children day-in and day-out, isn’t that accomplishing something? When I walk with my husband and we catch each other’s hand and squeeze, grateful that there’s so much love after so many years, isn’t that accomplishing something?

What if I wrote my holiday cards and explained that, indeed, I had exciting news. I’d say that since last I wrote, I’ve learned to react to others with compassion more often than anger. That I’ve cut down the length of time I need to forgive people by half. And guess what? I still haven’t lost that 10 pounds, but I’m much better at appreciating my body just the way it is.

I could go on to say that my kids haven’t won a single trophy this year, but instead won something much bigger. My respect. One risked social ostracism by sticking up for a child who was being relentlessly teased at school; another wants her Christmas money donated to a fund for endangered animals. What if when my friend came back with her latte, I said that my accomplishment this year was that I finally realized that the sleek body, the career, the big house and entertaining stories are all nice, but that I measure myself by who I am, not what I do.

And as for my Christmas cards? Well, if you get one and it’s sparse this year, it’s only because I’m achieving so much, I don’t know where to begin…