10 Things It Has Taken 25 Years for Me to Realize That My Parents Told Me When I Was Twelve

1. Prioritize your life. It’s all about Golf Balls, Pebbles, and Sand.
Your family, health and loved ones are Golf balls. Your job, your hobbies, your friends are pebbles. All the minuscule things like money, enemies, bills are sand. If you fill up your jar with sand first there will be no room for golf balls.

2. Control the ControllablesThings that you can control, control. Things that you can’t will either work themselves into
a situation that you can control them or they will resolve themselves. Don’t waste energy
worrying about what you can’t control.

3. Worry about what others think of you. It’s a good indication of how you are living your life.Don’t obsess about this, but the reflection of ourselves that we see in others is very telling of who we are as a person. They don’t define us they just help us see how we are defining ourself.

4. Your parents, teachers, and elders are a lot smarter than you think. You just won’t realize it until much..much later in life.I know it’s tough to admit, but your teachers and your parents know more than you. It’s okay if you don’t believe me. You won’t really understand how stupid you really are until you get out on your own...and not that “I’m on my own in college but mom and dad still pay my rent and send me food” I mean REALLY on your own.

5. Have regrets. They help us to learn.Regrets are natural. They help us see where our shortcomings lie. I don’t believe anyone who says they don’t regret a thing. I have regrets and they have helped me live a fuller life and avoid the same regrets as I have continued to grow.

6. Take pride in your grades, nobody else will if you don’t.At the end of the day your teachers and parents can only care so much about things that you don’t. If you don’t want to succeed why should anyone else want it for you? I don’t waste time on people who don’t care enough about their future to want to make it better.

7. Adopt the mindset of “looking for every adventure in every day”Every day has potential. Yes, even Mondays. Don’t spend your time wishing for your tomorrows. Every day has a new experience, a new challenge, and a new reward. If you always look for these, you will never truly have a bad day again.

8. Make your own decisions about people, places, and organizations.Other’s opinions can be some of the most poisonous things on the planet. I can’t tell you how many good relationships and friendships I would have missed out on had I listened to someone else about what to think of that person. Heed warnings and listen, but make up your own mind.

9. For the love of God, get involved in SOMETHING.
It will make you a better person in every way.

10. Do what you love but have a backup plan. Passion can be filtered into work and into hobbies. But figure out which things should be hobbies and which should be pursued as a career.
I have passion for my hobbies and for my job but in different ways. I know that I will always be able to turn my hobby into a career if the opportunity presents itself. But I wouldn’t be able to continue to have my career if I hadn’t focused on it in the first place. Chances are you will end up working a normal job like everyone else. Be prepared for that.

Trips back "Home" and OH!..I like what I do.

We are back. Back to work, back to school, back to my life here in Kansas.

It was nice to spend some time back in Michigan. I miss it there quite a bit. However, I do enjoy where I am. I like the people, location, job, and weather. It struck me as I was on the plane headed back to The Mitten that I am no longer a resident of the state of Michigan. Now it has been this way for quite some time. I guess I just never let it sink in. I am a Kansan. That is something I definitely never thought that I would say.

I have had a strange crystallizing realization in the past few months. I have been watching my close friends with great interest. I have been watching them get married, visiting their new homes that they have purchased, observing them getting jobs and starting companies, and the whole time comparing. Comparing my accomplishments to theirs, and always dwelling on the parts where they have outperformed me. While talking with an old friend from high school who I assumed since college had it all together, it was revealed to me that indeed he did not. He was not wealthy, he has just left his job where he was unhappy to start a company, and all in all his future with his wife is very uncertain. That was the moment that I realized that I have got it more figured out than I care to admit.

I may not be wealthy, and from the outside looking in, it may look like I abandoned the "professional world" to go running back to school. However, I know that the majority of my friends and acquaintances couldn't do my job. They couldn't wake at 3am to talk a frantic and wildly upset college student down of a ledge and they wouldn't dare try. What I am doing makes me happy and I like it. It may not look like the most professional gig in the world. I may not walk out my door everyday in a shirt and tie (I did that for two years...it really isn't much fun.) but I work in a professional setting with people who count on me and I need to remember that more and trust the path I'm on!  

So I got to see some old friends while back up north. That was quite nice. I did, however, spend most of my time just hanging around my parent's house. I don't have too many friends that still have weeks of vacation given to them at a time. It was nice to be back in familiar territory for almost a month, but I do think that it was the last time I will spend so much time back there at one time. It is also weird to see those words typed out.

I missed my fiance' dearly over the break. She was in the UK visiting her sister and spending time with her new niece. It was tough being apart for so long and I can only hope that it was the last time we spend so much time apart. Although, unfortunately, I cannot say for certain. Oh, by the way, I'm getting married.

After much work and many stressful nights I managed to score a 4.0 for this past semester. It was not until after the semester was completed that someone shared with me the fact that GPA really doesn't matter in grad school. As long as you pass, you pass. So does it suck that I won't be recognized for my great-good work? Yes. Yes it does. However, I am still glad that I was able to accomplish it. My program is not an easy one and I was doing some major original research for the first time in my academic career. I am just happy to feel that I accomplished something and that I lived up to my own expectations of myself.

Life is good. I am poor and still mildly irresponsible at times, but things are going well in all ways always.