Don’t Give Up on Your Dreams
If you’re trying to change something in your life, or do something that scares you, you must first solidify your goals in your own mind. Tell yourself over and over again that what you want is indeed possible. Seek out others that have done what you want and listen only to them. Don’t let people that don’t understand try to shake your self-confidence.
My girlfriend is finally starting college after dreaming about it for several years. Classes started yesterday, and last Friday she got a letter from the school saying that they were not offering her any financial aid. This was a tough blow for us. We had one weekend to scrounge up a few thousand dollars. However, I’m pretty much broke and she’s doing her best to keep us afloat.
We just didn’t have the dough.
I felt horrible. Here I was encouraging her to go back to school, but I couldn’t even help her out. I’m nearly unemployable. No one in my industry is hiring (thanks to the economy) and with my masters degree I’m far too “over educated” for any other type of job out there. All I have is my bootstrap internet business, which is still in the process of materializing.
It was probably the worst feeling I could imagine to sit there holding her and feeling her dream just shriveling up and dying. And worst yet, I couldn’t help but feel somehow responsible.
She told her dad and he tried to discourage her from going to school. I told my mom, but she just said some wishy-washy do-nothing nonsense like, “Well, the universe might just be telling her that it’s not time to go to school.” (No, the universe isn’t telling her anything. It’s the school telling her that they can’t give her money)
That pissed me off. I really hate it when people pretend to be all spiritual and then just end up sitting on their ass while they wait for a big dump truck full of gold coins to drive up to their house.
No, if you want something, you have to take action to get it.
I wasn’t going to sit on my ass. I was seeing this as a challenge that we could overcome if we tried hard enough. I don’t have the quote in front of my right now, but I believe Napoleon Hill once wrote something to the effect of, “Within every adversity is the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”
It was disheartening to hear all these people trying to tell her to put her dream on hold. Especially since she’s already been doing that for a few years now. And after finally working up the courage to go back to school, discouraging comments are the last thing she needs.
We spent the weekend weighing options. Hell, I even looked into participating in focus groups and paid psychological experiments at the university. In the end, she dropped one of her classes and signed up for a monthly tuition payment plan. I tacked on half of the price to my mounting credit card debt.
And yesterday, she went to school for the first time in years.
We didn’t listen to all the nay-sayers. We didn’t sit on our asses praying that some magical scholarship would just fall out of the sky. We took action and we got results. What’s most important to me, though is that she has now grown. She jumped over the hurdle of starting college, and I don’t know how yet, but I know that that will change her life.
Don’t let people bring you down. Don’t let them discourage you. Don’t listen to all the smoke they blow up your ass. Be solid and strong in your dreams, and never give up on them. If you can have faith in even the darkest night, you will live to see the sun rise.
July 22nd, 2010 at 3:06 am
I am sorry to hear about your girlfriend. And I can understand while being in that frustrating situation and your mom telling you Well, the universe might just be telling her that it’s not time to go to school.
If I had to analyze this and I know I don’t have all the information. I would say that your mom was the catalyst to you really focusing on how to come up with a solution. In the end it seems like your focused energy helped to solve the problem and your girlfriend got a lesson in having a goal and being determined to achieve her goals no matter what, a good lesson I might add to learn just before going to school don’t you think.
So maybe the universe nudged your mom to nudge you and all in all everything turned out to be positive “The Universe will never let you down”
“Every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent or greater success.” ~ Napoleon Hill
Ty Ramjohn
Infinite Minds
http://infiniteminds.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/tybird813
http://www.myspace.com/tybird813
July 22nd, 2010 at 3:33 pm
@Ty, That was a long time ago
My girlfriend only went to school for that one term. I had the goal of making enough money online for her to quit her job and go to school full-time last spring, but that didn’t really work out. She still wants to go back and take more classes, but the timing isn’t good right now. We’re getting ready to travel to Thailand in a few months. Maybe things will be better after we get back…