The older I get the less I know.

I still remember my first job interview at 15. I landed my first part-time job at the Gap outlet. My very first day on the job, I was faced with a pile of unfolded messy clothes on a table. The task at hand back then, looks like my son’s closets today. At 15, I jumped right into the task and started to fold these messy clothes on the table to make the table look organized enough for the customers to sort through them and to buy them. Soon after I sorted through that mess for months, I was promoted to the original Gap store front where the scenery was new and fresh. The clothes were neatly folded and presented in a manner where the customer wanted to buy them right off the shelf. At sweet 16, I was more focused on greeting the customer and closing the sale, clocking in and out for a day’s pay.

After leaving the retail industry, I had to focus more on my passion for work and I somehow landed in administration. Perhaps it could have been that simple vocational course I completed immediately out of high school that started my path for administration. This course was free offered by the city or the state, I really don’t remember but this free course paved the way for me to obtain the office skills needed to work in an office environment.

I still remember absorbing all the skills in administration, taking courses and attending seminars to improve my skills enormously. I learned the skills I needed and brought that expertise back into my workplace and executed my skills effectively. I was my own master, defining my own destiny, and claiming my own future for success.  Every time I turned a year older, I found myself striving for more skills and more money to reach the top or that pot of gold in my bank account.

Then I got married, and the kids came. My focus to thrive in my career shifted to my new born babies and a husband. My career became an afterthought. Being consumed with feeding babies, changing diapers, daycare, strollers and car seats, not to mention the duty of being a wife, my job was an afterthought. My skills in administration were only being utilized between the hours of 8am-5pm, after that I shifted into family time of nurturing babies, preparing dinner and preparing my family for the next day and doing it all over again. No time for traveling to seminars and executive courses because babies are more important. My desire to enhance my executive skills became an afterthought.

The older I got the less I know. I can only do what I am told. My desire has unfolded into an afterthought. I admire those who continue to strive for the best. Who jump through hoops, those who go above and beyond to get to the top because whatever it is that is in you to give you that boost, use it to your advantage so that your goals in life won’t just become an afterthought.

Raquel©