Signs You're Off Your Path in Life

You're off your path in life if:

1. Money is your priority. If you take a job just because you want the money but don't really care about the work involved, you are off your path;

2. You worry about what others think. If you feel embarrassed or uncomfortable doing the job you've chosen, if you worry that others will think your foolish, you are off your path. If you don't believe in the work your doing, then it is not the right work for you;

3. You focus on the end result, not the process. When you sign up for something, get involved with a project, a degree program, a job, and you keep thinking "when I'm finished I'll be making x amount of dollars. I just need to force myself to see it through"....you are probably in the wrong place. If you have to force yourself to do anything, then it's the wrong choice. A person should enjoy the learning and researching aspect of what they are doing and not just be focused on the accolades they might receive when it is all over. You are off the path;

4. You take shortcuts to achieve your objective. If you can't bring yourself to complete all the small goals in the process of reaching the big goal, you are off your path. If you try to find easier and quicker ways to get to the big goal because truthfully you don't care about the process, you just want to get it over with already, you're off your path;

5. You take on more than you can handle. If you have signed yourself up for a full time college program, as well as working full time, you have probably taken on more than you can handle. You basically set yourself up for failure. Exhaustion, stress, and loose thinking with regard to money, time and relationships all in the name of achieving a goal, is not a recipe for success, it is a recipe for disaster. If you are in a position where your daily responsibilities outweigh your free time, then you need to figure out how you can achieve your goal without losing everything in the process. Maybe take classes online instead of in person? If someone else is paying the bills (not very likely, I know), then maybe work out an agreement with them so you can complete your goal. Either way, if you set yourself up to take on more than you can physically and psychologically handle, you are off your path.

Finding your way in this life is not easy, but it is not supposed to be excrutiatingly hard either. If it is a constant struggle filled with setbacks and failures, you can guarantee you are off your path and the universe is trying to tell you so.

First Attempt at Helping Others

Last week I did something I've never done before. On my Facebook timeline I saw a post from someone who listed a link to their fundraising site. I clicked the link and read a short paragraph written by someone in my town, who I don't know, pleading for help to raise money so that he and his girlfriend could stay in their apartment. Apparently, they had a roommate who suddenly decided to move out, taking the security deposit with him. These two people in question also have two babies in their care. I felt an instant connection with them. Or an overwhelming desire to right this wrong. At the time only one person had donated $35.00. At last check, that number still remains the same.

I suddenly found myself looking up the email addresses for government officials who are in charge of the town I live in. I proceeded to send an email to the governor, senator and two representatives explaining the situation and providing the link to the fundraising site. From the governor, I got back an auto response thanking me for contacting him, and nothing else. I never heard from the town representatives at all. The only person that followed through was Senator Walter Felag. (I also called him at his home and left a detailed voice mail.) He called me the next day asking me to clarify the situation. He implied that he felt he could help. He did explain to me that he wasn't really the person who handles this sort of thing but would pass my number along to someone in the constituents office and see if there was anything they could do. The next day, I heard from a man from the constituents office and he said the town and state doesn't have any funding left to help people like this. That they could try to reach out to the housing authorities and see what they say. I told him that these people already did that and the waiting lists for housing help were closed never mind being years and years long. I gave him the phone number of the couple in question and he said he would reach out to them and explain that there was not much they could do, other than provide them with shelter information. And that ended that. I find it disappointing that there wasn't a solution to this problem. The people who are given positions in office, are limited in their ability to help. So what does that mean? All these people in this state and in every other state, who are at risk or high risk of losing their home have no where to turn for help? No where????? So they end up on the street or their mother's couch indefinitely. This is not okay and I really want to do something to change this reality. People WANT to help themselves, sometimes they just need a hand up to buy them that little extra bit of time to get their lives in order.

A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink

A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink: Executive Summary. I wanted to attach the link to the "Paycheck to Paycheck" story for anyone interested in reading more about it.

Paycheck to Paycheck

I watched the show "Paycheck to Paycheck" on Oprah's Townhall last night with Maria Shriver. I had also seen the HBO documentary about Katrina Gilbert. When I first watched that documentary I actually ended up switching channels because I found it so depressing. Not because her story is so sad, but because I could relate to it and seeing my reality in hers hit a little to close to home. But now after seeing Oprah's Townhall show I feel more inspired. Inspired to do something. I, like millions of other women, live on the edge of financial catastrophe. I often look around at my apartment, that I worked so hard to make cheery and cute, and see it not as my "home", but almost like it's a mirage. It doesn't ever seem real. Because in my head, I know that at anytime, unexpectedly, it can all disappear. One wrong move, one rent payment not paid for one reason or another, and it's all gone and my daughter and I are living in my car or on someone's couch. It makes me crazy. All this crap about the "American Dream" that has been shoved down all our throats since we were kids, how we can be "anything" when we grow up......it's all bullshit. If a person doesn't know the right people, have the right amount of money or have a piece of paper from a college saying you have a degree, then basically it appears you are nothing. You don't count. Your opinion doesn't matter, you don't matter. A person can be highly and naturally skilled and capable of doing a job, but unless you have a piece of paper from a college saying so, it doesn't matter. I find that infuriating. Millions of people are not working or can't find work that pays more than $8.50 an hour because employers only want the ones who are perfect. And even when they find the perfect one, they still pay them garbage wages. A piece of paper and millions of years of experience shouldn't be what identifies us. People are more than just a college degree. We all come from years of experience. So what if it wasn't in the exact field of the job we are applying for. That doesn't mean we aren't capable. This downward spiral has to stop. People need to be given a chance. Men and Women. So many unemployed, underemployed, homeless. It's sickening. What is happening? Where is this all going to lead? How can one person make a difference? I don't know. But I'm going to try to find out.

I'm A Late Bloomer

I started having kids in my very early twenties, I sort of short changed my young adulthood. I wasn't the girl going out to parties and staying up all night. Well, I was, but not for long. My first child was born when I was 21. I was a single mother. Everything I thought I was going to do and had planned for in my head, came to a screeching halt. I then proceeded to have three more children, and one divorce, over the next six years. Now, here I am, in my forties, feeling like a teenager all over again. Not because I'm reliving my lost youth, but because I have found myself as a middle aged lady with not a lot of substantial work experience under my belt. I may as well be 18 again. When potential employers interview me, (if I can even get an interview), they always look perplexed as to why I have had so many odd jobs over the years. Some wildly different from the others. From a sales clerk at the mall, to a manicurist at every salon in town, to a paralegal for a well known law firm. Interviewers want to know..."Who are you? And why are you applying here to be a research assistant?".....nothing makes any sense. I'm all over the road when it comes to employment. And that may very well be because I have always had to jump around from job to job, taking whatever came my way. Sometimes the hours sucked, more often, the pay rate sucked, lack of experience, boredom with the job itself etc. etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty smart. I just put my life on hold so I could raise my children. So I always ended up with mediocre jobs that went nowhere.

Now to get to the point of the story.......my mother would always tell me that I have plenty of time to get my career in order. Once the kids are grown, you can focus on yourself......blah, blah, blah. Here's the kicker....now that my kids are grown and now I'm in my mid forties, most employers think I'm a fruit loop for being such a job hopper for the last twenty years and hesitate to hire me, (I think a majority of the people in my age group have been working in the same field for many years at this point in their lives, which explains why they get the job offers and I don't), and I certainly don't want to incur more student loan debt than I already have by going back to school, so what do I do? Where do I go from here? Well, after much anguishing and internal soul searching, I have come to the conclusion that I am a late bloomer.  I am really just starting out on my career path and that is okay. It has to be okay. There really is no other option but to keep going forward. I'm sure I'm not the only one. As a matter of fact, my chosen career may depend on it.

I know just how it feels to be standing at the split in the road, not really sure which path to take. If you go to the left, maybe that is wrong and you'll be sorry, again. But how do you know if taking the path on the right is the correct way? How can you even be sure your smart enough to make a rational decision for yourself that won't eventually blow up in your face? What if your middle aged and you still don't have a clue about what career you even want?!! I know just how you feel. It is hard and incredibly stressful to think that the decision you make today, may be one you will have to live with until you get to retirement age. So we put so much pressure on ourselves to make a great and appropriate career choice. Too much pressure. So much so that we, I know I did, become paralyzed and sometimes end up not making any choice at all.

So....I'm still working on that "choice". I've narrowed down my options to something in the healing and helping others category. What that will be, I still don't know.


"Your crown has been bought and paid for. All you must do is put it on" - James Baldwin