Another Day, Another Lesson

I was conducting an interview today with a woman about 35 years old. She spent the majority of her time answering my questions with stories about how she is “sick of going job to job” and “living paycheck to paycheck”. She told me that she had a family to provide for and wants to be able to do so much more for them. When I got to the point in the interview where I asked her where she saw her career going five years from now, she paused. After about ten seconds, she looked back up at me and responded with “you know, I’ve never thought about having a career before. I’ve only ever had jobs. But I guess that would be nice, to have a career. I guess I’ll have to think about it”.
I was hit with the instant realization of how PRIVILEGED I am to have grown up in a setting where I was ALWAYS encouraged to think and dream and plan for what I wanted. Even now, I often forget that having the time and mental capacity to set goals and then having the energy and the drive to actually achieve them is a LUXURY. And it is one that I am eternally grateful for.
That being said, I think there’s a lot of us out there that don’t take advantage of our options. If you’re not where you want to be right now- in your career, or your relationship, or your financial situation- take an hour or two (or four) this week and really get in touch with what you want your life to look like. What type of clothes you want to wear everyday, what type of work you want to do, what kind of impact you want to have. Don’t let yourself go another decade working jobs for other people only to realize that you have no idea where you want to go next. Life is too short. You are capable of too much. Don’t settle.