Surviving, Striving, Thriving and other Vings

I have been listening to an alarming amount of motivational and educational CDs, webcasts, podcasts and books-on-CD as of late.  Alarming more speaks to the sheer volume, not a negative jab at the nature of the Realm of Motivation.  I started a business this last summer, started another one two months ago and a third a week ago.  This has brought a lot of To Do lists and goal lists into my life.

The goal of all of this goal-setting is simple:  There was a plan, once upon a time, to complete college and get a job.  Then I was to stay at said job until I moved up this ladder thing I hear people refer to, usually in disdain or jealous snarkiness.  Then, someday, some magical day, I would be exalted to the role of Retiree.  I would then live out my days happily in a little spot somewhere with a lot of sand and comfortable pant-shoes combos.

I tried that plan, it didn't work.  I tried it again.  It didn't work, and so on and so forth, pardon the grotesque use of cliche', and pardon it now because you may hear it more before today's post is done.

I am not the only one saying this right now, I am actually among the majority, if you listen closely, read closely, look around.

Would that plan have worked if I had not been a single parent?  Young?  At one point fiercely addicted to certain things that kept me from wanting to do anything other than just make enough money to purchase the very items keeping me in gross apathy?  Would that plan have worked if I had attended a different school as my first?  Worked different jobs?  Not worn mini-skirts at the wrong times?  Gotten more than sober - gotten my act together faster?  If my entire twenties had gone differently, would I be a fan of the plan?

These and such other wildly dramatized questions will NOT be answered in upcoming blog posts, simply because they do not mater.  What does matter is at this very moment and for this very woman, working for me out of my own home and running around networking, meeting scores of people and learning things... these things are necessary for my survival.  I say survival because if hope is dead, a person becomes nothing more than a walking cautionary tale.  I can't take that tale to my children at bedtime and expect them to have anything other than terror about their futures.  I refuse to be that sort of tale.... I would rather be a tale of someone who didn't do any of the things she should have done, in the order they "should have" been done in, and not only survived, but thrived.