I have been thinking a lot about dreams and success. I have thought about how sometimes I see successful people. I angled my life for success, and I wound up here. I'm a Civil Engineer. I have experienced more failure and heartbreak in the things that really matter than I ever bargained for, than I ever knew was possible, than I ever thought would happen to me. And in those hard times, lie my greatest successes. Not in my grades from high school or college, not in the scholarships I was awarded and maintained, not in the job I found when I graduated, not in the amount of time I didn't spend looking for a job. It wasn't in my GRE score, any more than failure was in my GMAT score.
My greatest success in life has been becoming a person I literally never thought I could be, thanks in part to my own perseverance, but also entirely on the grace of a good God that helps me through. And so I have successfully undone my own definition of success; that success is making money, or making it big, or finally getting an office instead of a cubical so that I can pick my nose in peace. Instead, success is reaching the milestones that are meaningful to us. Learning to control my anger, and express what were heretofore unmanageable and unexpressable feelings when frustration strikes. Dating and marriage, and all that that entails, the successes and the failures, have been the roughest and most rewarding ride of my life. They are so rewarding because they are so meaningful. Success is best enjoyed when it is meaningful.
Dreams are an entirely different matter. I've been having this weird preschooler struggle, except I'm 26, and I'm supposed to be mature and composed and have these things figured out. I don't. I think any time we act composed, it's just that, an act. But I am aware of my own acting, and everyone else's acting convinces me that they're not. Anyway, I've been trying to figure this out. I have dreams about my future. I have a dream to have children, and a dog, and a house, and, you know, if possible, a few sheep so that my dog doesn't get bored while I'm at work. If we lived in a freezing cold double wide out in the middle of a huge open field, well, I wouldn't complain. A dream. I have another dream where I go back to school, which is the crux of where this is going. It started out as engineering, I could get a master's in engineering, then it shifted to computers - IT to be specific. I would be so good at it; it would be really fun. Then I thought I should get an MBA, because I would stretch and grow and understand the way that businesses work, and, with any luck, make more money and all that. I also have the persistent dream that I could be a rock star. And the dream always persists that some great idea will happen upon me, change my life and make me an author that could support himself authoring. So it looks like I am an Engineer Programmer Marketer Rocker Author. The problem is, I can only pick one. So which one do I follow? Which whim? Which dream? The one I love the most I suppose. I'm still trying to figure out which one that is.
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