If You Could Have It All

I love the show, "The Apprentice". Part of the jingle at the beginning is, "What if you could have it all?"

This is probably going to be cliche for me, but what if I don't think that Trump has it all? I actually think fame would be a loathesome thing to have. Money is nice. But failed marriages, no thanks.

I am a "driven" person. I think Greg hit on this in a comment once. (It was pretty perceptive.) If I wanted to, I am sure I could be one of those people who would be obsessive about what I want, focus on one thing and kill it. I am good at reaching goals. If I set agressive ones, I could meet them. I know this about myself.

But at what cost? How do I set goals keeping in mind what is important to me in life? If I have to decide between being to work on time or going to take medicine to my sick sister, I choose the sister (as long as I am not putting someone else out of sorts). If I have clients that insist that I work on Sundays and that messes with my commitment to the teens, I refer them out to other sales people. I arrange my life and my work around things that matter to me. That is family and helping other people.

I am not writing this to toot my own horn. Some people probably think I am insane. Why would I sacrifice fame or wealth (or possibly both) for people?

I sometimes think of the saying, on your deathbed would you regret not making more money or spending time with my family or people that needed me? Yeah, so I could probably reach $500,000 a year if I really wanted to. But my life would be work. It wouldn't be J. It wouldn't be visiting my best girlfriend over Memorial Day Weekend. It wouldn't be taking care of my sister when she has the flu. It wouldn't be blowing off work for a month to spend time with the teens after Josh died.

It would be about my checkbook balance. And what if that fell apart?