My mom says to me time and time again, “The race is not for the swift”. What it means, at the core, is that some achieve dreams quickly, and others slowly. Don’t be discouraged, she is saying. Eventually, we all achieve.
Not everyone pushes off the starting block at the same time. In fact, some people don’t make it on the track in time to run at the pistol. And that’s life. We run one race, yes, but good things and bad things happen to everyone along the way. It’s how we handle the rocks we stumble on, the pain that shoots up our leg as we sprint, and the thirst that hits us when the sun beats down relentlessly, that determines when, and if, we make it to the finish line. What matters is how we pace ourselves, if we stand up when we fall, and if we caved when the elders insisted we take water along for sustenance.
This website is a testament to my race. I published it in 2016 during my final year of graduate school. A friend said I would need a portfolio to accompany my application for a Happiness Engineer position at Automattic.
The desire to be an Automattican hit me at an important mile marker. I was about to complete my Masters. Soon after, I would leave a boss I adored in Hoboken to start a position in Baltimore. A year later, I would be hired for my dream job as a regional planner. My pace had been slow. My incoming graduate class had long since started their careers. Mom was right though. Close to 20 years after high school, I was on track to achieve my dreams, too. I can tell you, unequivocally, when the desire to create Happiness hit me, my future was planned. Literally, and figuratively.