A "Real World" Wake-Up Call
Daughter #2 attending college on the mainland found a job on campus that fits her schedule, will add hours as they become available and be flexible when her class schedule changes each quarter. Six hours on Sunday afternoon and evening. What could be better? The perfect job! Except....
Last Sunday, in the middle of the Super Bowl game she had to leave the Super Bowl party and go to work. Just like millions of other Americans. She felt cheated, of course, and I would have felt cheated, too! But I suspect that her feeling of being cheated was not that of a child missing out on something because their parents were taking them somewhere else or because were grounded for something they had done. Instead, I believe that what my daughter felt was an adult feeling, where it was her own decisions and her own commitments that required her to miss something else she wanted to do.
One of the hardest things to learn as an adult is how to live with conflicts of all kinds. Every choice an adult makes, whether when to go shopping, what degree to work for in college, where to seek employment or whether to get married or have children, involves saying "No" to something else. In real life there are consequences to the choices we make. We must learn that we can't have it all and embrace the need to make sacrifices in life.
Those who do not learn this generally do not fare very well in life. They either squander what they have or become paralyzed and unable to make any real decisions, sacrifices or commitments at all.
My daughter is learning a great many things at college, and, as I had predicted, the most important lessons are not those she is learning in the classroom.
Last Sunday, in the middle of the Super Bowl game she had to leave the Super Bowl party and go to work. Just like millions of other Americans. She felt cheated, of course, and I would have felt cheated, too! But I suspect that her feeling of being cheated was not that of a child missing out on something because their parents were taking them somewhere else or because were grounded for something they had done. Instead, I believe that what my daughter felt was an adult feeling, where it was her own decisions and her own commitments that required her to miss something else she wanted to do.
One of the hardest things to learn as an adult is how to live with conflicts of all kinds. Every choice an adult makes, whether when to go shopping, what degree to work for in college, where to seek employment or whether to get married or have children, involves saying "No" to something else. In real life there are consequences to the choices we make. We must learn that we can't have it all and embrace the need to make sacrifices in life.
Those who do not learn this generally do not fare very well in life. They either squander what they have or become paralyzed and unable to make any real decisions, sacrifices or commitments at all.
My daughter is learning a great many things at college, and, as I had predicted, the most important lessons are not those she is learning in the classroom.
posted by Bird of Paradise at 1:12 PM
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