Finding Contentment in Being Less Than What I Want and Being More of What I Need.

Yes, can you believe it? I sure can’t. It’s already been a month after I graduated. I remembered walking through the hall ways not as a college freshman but just as a high school student. I remembered the days of passionately hoping and praying for better ones. I wanted a change in my environment. I yearned for new opportunities to grow and challenge myself in ways that would impact my life. My journey to and through Oswego brought all of those experiences to me. Now that, that chapter is over you ask me what comes next huh?

I have worked as hard as possible and exceeded my goals to this point. I as do thousands of recent college graduates are faced with today’s tough economy where hundreds of thousands of already full-time and part-time workers have been laid off jobs, businesses have foreclosed, and even major corporations seek bailouts. Where do we go from here you say?

Despite these harsh realities I find myself being frustrated but not concerned. Frustrated of course because I wish circumstances weren’t this challenging. But, I’m concerned that people won’t utilize a moment like this to work harder and become more than what they had envisioned from the start for their lives. Yes, that is difficult to do. It’s a challenge and you have to be up for it if you expect to move forward.

Dr. Phil, from the Dr. Phil Show recently published a blog that was dedicated to recent college graduates, “Ten Things I Wish Your Kids Would Hear at Their Graduation.” I couldn’t agree with him more and I think that all of my peers should take the time to read it. What I take from him is to be flexible, loosing a sense of entitlement, and not to be afraid to fail. I am more content now than I have ever been in my life as a result of the job market and the economy. I have learned to be content in being less than what I want and more of what I need. It comes from the expectation of having a degree, wanting the job of my dreams, my own home, and so forth.

It’s so simple and easy to want those things in a condition where the possibilities of having those things in this tough time are highly unlikely. Even if the job market and economy were great I still couldn’t expect that all my wants should be satisfied. It’s just not a reality either way when attempting to get what you want. It takes time, blood, sweat, tears, and dozens of detours on your path to getting where you would like to go. So on that path, on that journey, in your book or however you determine your guide to your ultimate success, you have to be creative and flexible to finding what you need in place of what you want in order to eventually make it to where you would like to be.

Therefore, I chose to focus on what it is that I need. I need balance. I need to work harder. I need to seek opportunities not for money, but for experience and growth mainly. Overall I’m in love with the condition of what is going on around me. It’s shaping me to being a stronger, wiser, and better person. Of all the things I can’t control I shall make it my best and for all the things I can control I shall make them INCREDIBLE! I sincerely encourage that you seek out your passion and go for it. You can make it happen. You can make it WORK! I remember the days of passionately hoping and praying for better days sometime ago to get to this point. The amazing part now is that I will be doing the same thing to get through to this next phase.