"Everyone has different lessons to learn."

At the time I was commuting from Binghamton NY to Scranton PA (one hour each way) and I would listen to the instruction tapes for the planner while I was driving. Those tapes are good, by the time I got to work each morning I was "Fired Up"!

I thought I could take on the world, so I did what the tapes said. I evaluated my values. I set goals and achievable steps to meeting those goals. I realized some things about myself. I took some action. I was on top of the world. I knew what I wanted and I was taking steps to achieve my goals. And then....

Well, you knew there would be an "and then" didn't you.

One by one the people I counted on and trusted let me down and betrayed my trust. I went from the top of the world to the bottom sitting in the ruins of my dreams.

I was devastated. I cried my self to sleep at night and cried myself awake every morning. I was suicidal. Although my remaining friends soon got tired of hearing about it since I never did anything. I was compulsively "religious". The pain was so great that I just prayed every day for the Goddess to take it away. I also read the cards at least twice a day, looking for some answer, some promise that the pain would stop. I cried at inappropriate times and was barely functional at work.

I couldn't watch TV shows that had happy endings because they just reminded my of everything I didn't have. Weddings, new houses, good jobs, those were things that happened to other people The success of others just highlighted my own failure. I got though each day by diligently avoiding my dreams.

I started going to a therapist again. It took me a few tries before I found the right one. I usually need a male therapist and this one was just right. He liked to talk more than a therapist generally should but his point of view helped me. We would analyze my problems using different schools of thought and it helped me get some distance from the pain. That and the Prozac. Prozac didn't have the sort of dramatic effects on me that it has had on other people. It didn't change my personality it just lightened the load. Time did the rest I have gotten better as the years pass. I'm not seeing the therapist anymore and I'm not taking Prozac. And I only occasionally think of killing my self.

What all that taught me is that I shouldn't dream, I shouldn't plan, I shouldn't set goals for more than a month in advance.

I know what you'll say now "That was just one incident. You shouldn't base your life on one failure."

But it wasn't just one incident my whole life has been like that. This was just the most recent and the most devastating.

All my life the things I have achieved were not planned and the things I have planned were not achieved.

I can not schedule anything for more than a few months in advance or my whole life will fall apart and whatever I planned will become impossible to achieve.

I did finally get an AA and my BA. But you would not believe the conspiracy of people it took to pull that off. If it were not for the diligence of my parents, my friend Pat, Cindy and my Mentor (Martha Jean Schecter) working against my own nature to get me those degrees I would not have them. I got my AA by trying to get my BA. Martha pointed out that I could pick up the AA with the credits I had and at least have something to show for my work even if I never got the BA. And in the final months of my BA work I stopped thinking of the BA and aimed for a Masters thesis. Using my theory that I don't achieve the things I aim for but I do achieve things while I'm aiming for something else. And it worked I did manage to complete my BA. Although I have not even started looking at Grad school.

So what does all this have to do with my Motto? Simply this, some people actually do go though life setting goals and achieving them. For those people the world is a very different place. Those sort of people put out Franklin Planners or write books about achieving success though planing and goal setting. Because they know from experience that if they set goals and make plans they can achieve anything they want. To them it is obvious that anyone who is not achieving goals is not making plans and following through, because that is how the world works for them. That is the lesson life has taught them.

But, that is not true for other people. I have tried, many times, to set goals and plan and follow though and it always ends in disaster. Life is consistently trying to teach me to let go and stop trying, because that is the only time I succeed.

I need to do what works for me and not listen to those people who are blessed with a different path. Life has different lessons to teach each of us. Therefor..."Everyone has different lessons to learn."

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