Be Stubborn With Your Goals and Flexible With Your Methods

There were two separate years where I was apprehensive to be with my grandmother, because it took away from my education and career; the only thing I care about is getting that graduate degree to have the dream job. You are competitive and type A when you start college your freshman year of highschool, as I did. However, taking that time taught me about what truly matters in family life, and you do not need to pick between career success and family matters.

There is a time for everything. It was not just one night of having a huge term paper due, and spontaneously spending the night, it is semesters spent with them versus my world. It was both a sacrifice and a luxury to have that special time together; it made me a better person than I would have been staying on the black and white assembly line for success. I feel that my family cares for me more after enduring a medical procedure this week, because of the time that I was flexible for all of us. It is a luxury to not have to hire someone to reach the stitches on my back, dressing them everyday, and having a family member touching me instead. I’m businessy and mathy; one time I babysat for my powerful woman boss’s parents, because I felt compassionate for her situation after feeling the same way in the past. She bought me a mountain of assorted bagels from Goldberg’s and has a very cool home. Finding yourself caught in a place between becoming involved with care in a life-altering way that is unfortunately not an option and finding the correct person to help you, is real problem. When life makes you choose love over a program or event, gratitude is the highest compensation, it’s life-altering, you just look to Jesus whilst having faith everything happens in time. In the end, there are moments that cannot be deferred, sacrifices, and hopefully the good outweighs the bad in making a decision for the right reasons. The main take away from this should be, it can be appropriate to switch seats on a flight with your boss and babysit for them one weekend, being nice is good thing.

Taking care of a family member does not mean you need to change professional fields to healthcare at all, but it is nice of you to help your family. Even though I was helping my grandparents, I am still mathy and businessy, not about to pursue a healthcare career as my aunt did, because that is not who I am; my aunt would not want my profession either, it would blow her mind. I will admit I hit a point where we did both, hired someone and I was being nice helping, but at the end of the day I belong in a different world and needed to differentiate myself. I say differentiate myself, because my aunt for instance did not have a world in my world and never really understood they should have hired a babysitter, and I did my time meaning something had to give eventually. You need to live your life, I found myself sacrificing competitive opportunities not everyone just has, for minuscule reasons at one point where a babysitter should be standard. For instance, a longtime professor created a math research study for me to be apart of, because I had to shoot down the competitive one in California I could have been a part of, but it all still looks good on paper; one I needed to apply for and the other I could just kinda sorta have for being me. All of that made me weird about settling on certain aspects of life, I can turn into a real beast when it comes to having my standard and not settling; no more time to mess around. I say, “No, I need to have what I actually want, it’s my turn…” Then, I’ll jokingly offer to hire the babysitter myself, give them some cash, ask my aunt what they’re doing. Yeah, we needed to make a change so I am not sixty-five when I have my doctorate and marry someone, it is hard to make certain decisions regarding lifestyle and accomplishments; finding the right way to help someone you love and still have your life. Sometimes, if a bad babysitter was chosen, I would not leave for my event, because it is like leaving your baby, it’s a whole thing. At times, it can be hard to not become lost in being with a family member, but keep your brain sharp and set obtainable goals to stay who you are. You can have the emotional capacity to love, as well as the brain for success in the workplace and academia. There is no rush, however there is definitely a time for everything. Compassion is a profound characteristic to possess.

Sometimes when you want to scream, you just need to take three deep calming and relaxing breathes instead. Times that have made me want to scream, made me improve my calming and relaxing meditative skills. Take the time limit away, if a chapter is going against every bone in your body. Also, I have layers of goals for certain periods of time. I have ten minute sessions of meditation on my zafu pillow everyday, it helps me in life and running well. Meditation enables being a tough cookie.