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Saturday, June 7, 2014

The Power To Choose

This post brought to you by New York Life. All opinions are 100% mine.

I have been a long-time advocate of the idea that you can be anything you want to be if you just work hard enough.  You can choose your own destiny.  Why settle for less than you want?  Obviously there are exceptions to this rule but for the most part I really believe that if you have dreams you should reach for them and if you have wishes you should work toward them.

Case in point: my husband graduated college and found an entry-level job at a local company with the potential to move up in the corporate world just after we had our first baby.  It was what I had always dreamed of happening but the problem was it wasn't his dream.  After two short weeks it became very apparent that he didn't want to be "stuck" in a desk job forever.  Instead of telling him to stick it out and make it work because it made the most financial sense, I realized it was more important to have a husband who really loved his job...really loved...and was happy.  I encouraged him to figure out what his dream job would be if he could be anything he wanted and 2 weeks later he went back to school.

We started over.  It took 4 more years of school and a second Bachelor's degree before he had a real shot and getting the job he wants.  It required me going back to work and working full time from home to help support our family so he could go to school full time.  (Luckily I too thought about what I would love to do and found my dream job too so it wasn't as awful as it could have been).

We were just talking about this the other day, about if our sacrifice was worth the risk.  My husband showed me a convocation speech Jim Carey gave just last week (Jim Carey...I know right?!?) in which he said "I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail in what you don't want, so you might as well take the chance at doing what you love".  This statement sums it up perfectly.

It's a concept my parents did a very good job of teaching me that I want to in turn teach my children.  I really do want my two little girls to live their dreams, become the person they really want to be and reach all the potential I see in them.  I realize my dreams will not necessily be their dreams and I hope like the mom in the video My All-Star Daughter I have the strength to support them in those dreams.

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