Square One

My new life out west has been a fairly sobering one. I came from a place where I knew everything and many people. Some would say I was crazy to leave that kind of comfort and security where I came from. I understand this point of view and don't blame people who opt to stay in those kinds of situations. In most cases it's probably the smartest thing to do. However, I didn't trade the comforts and securities of the known for the trials and uncertainties of the unknown because I wanted to escape. I did it because I wanted to educate myself in the "real world".

Most of my life has been sheltered and privileged in a world that many would consider aesthetically pleasing and relatively fertile with opportunity and gain. There are certainly benefits to this for which I am grateful every day, but it is also a handicap in some ways. Having things given to you with little struggle doesn't fulfill my sense of reward or achievement. What have I really done? It's not to say I haven't worked hard and earned whatever rewards or accolades I've achieved in life thus far. I could have had my college tuition paid for with my savings, but I wanted to earn a scholarship, and did. And this brings me to my point: I don't want to spend my life relying on people/things that I haven't earned without ever knowing I could do the same thing.

Former President Theodore Roosevelt said, "I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph." When I read this, it blew me away. It is something I wish more of my generational peers would read rather than expect things to fall into their collective laps. The idea of the "strenuous life" is, I think, a primary reason why I came out of the Midwest and to the West. Because I could start fresh and, in essence, live the strenuous life. I could learn what it is to struggle, to truly earn something, to achieve at a base level. This, I believe, will be beneficial to me because I will continue to learn how to work hard for what I want and how to achieve it from nothing. Combine that with the actual networks of people I know and benefits I've been so lucky to have, and it will make for a smart and effective way to live.

Thankfully I have a strong and amazing woman to help me along the way :)