Should be Day 191.
Everyone looks back on their life with some form of regret. Some wish they would have studied harder in school or done that project when they were first nudged to do it. Some wish they would have summed up enough courage to say that nice thing to someone special while they still could, while others say if they could go back in time, they would have studied that occupation from the start like they wanted to instead of wasting so many years learning a different trade.
Rebecca is a person who lives with regrets. She's happy with how her life turned out, but she often wonders how her life would have changed, and perhaps been even better, had she accepted the job offer she had been given to be an understudy for a year in London. She had to turn it down because she couldn't afford living there and had a stable job with benefits where she was, although they weren't as job as the benefits the London job had to offer. When it boiled down to it, Rebecca had been too scared to take the job and leave everything she ever knew as safe and comfortable.
She often daydreamed how different her life would have been had she taken the job in London. She finally could say she'd been out of the country. She would have met new people. She could have ended up marrying a man with a fine British accent, granted she greatly loved the man she was married to now. Living on London, she could have traveled to other parts of the UK. And to think of all the experience she could have gotten in that job?! It could have propelled her career to a more distinguished job than the one she had now or could have allowed her to move to different parts of England, or even a different country entirely!
As nice as that could have been, Rebecca knows that had she taken that job in London, she could have missed out on some terrific things as well. Only her first boss could have taught her all she knew about her work now and about life in general. He had been the pinnacle of a hard-worker, and his integrity and shrewd business sense mingled with generosity was a model example to all who looked to him. Rebecca learned about submission, honesty, and versatility in her years working at that company. She uses those values countless in her work today.
Sure she could have had a higher paying job, but she never would have known the joy of paying for her first apartment out of her own paycheck. It was small and needed repairs, but it was due to the repairs that she met her best, lifelong friend at the Home Depot while she was looking for a carpet ripper. He helped give her two, soon to be three, beautiful children. Rebecca also would have missed out on years bonding with her father, her little brother's graduation, the opportunity to help her church fundraise for new choir uniforms and supplies for the Sunday schools and day care, or the blessing of meeting all the wonderful neighbors that had added to her life and helped her through some rough times. Rebecca has decided that she wouldn't have traded away all these things in her life for any job offer.
No comments:
Post a Comment