careers

Gratitude was never meant to be an excuse for giving up on the obstacles God has put before you. Some of the most magical things he can bring us require faith and a lot of planning.

Whatever you do, do it with purpose. Being focused is not something to be ashamed of. It is something to be proud of. When you know what are you are doing and have a clear vision of where you are going, you will not need to chase opportunities. Opportunities will seek you. Happiness will chase you. And, instead of being a choice, you will be the one choosing.

I don't remember deciding to become a writer. You decide to become a dentist or a postman. For me, writing is like being gay. You finally admit that this is who you are, you come out and hope that no one runs away.

As a young child I wanted to be a writer because writers were rich and famous. They lounged around Singapore and Rangoon smoking opium in a yellow pongee silk suit. They sniffed cocaine in Mayfair and they penetrated forbidden swamps with a faithful native boy and lived in the native quarter of Tangier smoking hashish and languidly caressing a pet gazelle.

Everyone is poor in one way or another, so there is no need to worry of where you belong, we are all rich and poor at the same time.

You don't have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don't have to explain what you plan to do with your life. You don't have to justif your education by demonstrating its financial rewards. You don't have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history or economics or science or the arts.You have to pay your own electric bill. You have to be kind. You have to give it all you've got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that's all.

I hope when people ask what you're going to do with your English and/or creative writing degree you'll say: ... Carry it with me, as I do everything that matters.

The most common mistake you'll make is forgetting to keep your own scorecard. Very little at work reinforces your ability to do this, so you will have to be vigilant. When evaluators give you an assessment, they are just guessing at who you are; they certainly are not the ones who know your potential. They can rate you and influence you, but they don't get to define you. That's your most honorable assignment: to define, every day through the way you deliver your work, the scope and nature of your inherent abilities.

If you find what you do each day seems to have no link to any higher purpose, you probably want to rethink what you're doing.

You can't be tempted, unless you want what is tempting you.

Wealth is violent and uneasy to acquire, don't blow yourself by rushing. You won't find, you will only get lost on your way to find and you won't find it, Reserve yourself and wealth will find you.

Earn Nicely, spend wisely and you will live happily.

We all have our unique careers that differ from one another, but the fact is that we must become "teachers and learners" at the end of it all! By the "learning career", we know what other people know; by the "teaching career", we make other people to know what we know!

Careers are developed one conversation at a time - over time.

The source to low self-esteem is the lack of control you feel you have in your life. If you spend your life competing with others, trying to make right the wrongs done to you, or waste your time trying to look right, you will never achieve contentment and emotional balance. People you encounter in life can__ be controlled by you. You only have control of yourself. Build your life around a relationship with a higher power and achieving what you__e passionate about. When you let go of what you can__ control, true peace can then enter your life. This is the path to achieving emotional balance.

A fantasy is nothing more than a dream you were too scared to chase.

I am, after all, an adult, a grown man, a useful human being, even though I lost the career that made me all these things. I won't make that mistake again.

I would go to parties and say I was an editor, and people, especially women _ and that was important to me back then _ would say, __h, really?_ and raise their eyebrows and look at me a little more carefully. I remember the first party I went to after I became a teacher, someone asked me what I did for a living, and I said, __ell, I teach high school._ He looked over my shoulder, nodded his head, said, __ went to high school,_ and walked away.Once I repeated this anecdote around a big table full of Mexican food in the garden at a place called La Choza in Chicago, and Becky Mueller, another teacher at the school, said that I was a __toryteller._ I liked that. I was looking for something to be other than __ust_ a teacher, and __toryteller_ felt about right. I am a teacher and a storyteller in that order. I have made my living and my real contribution to my community as a teacher, and I have been very lucky to have found that calling, but all through the years I have entertained myself and occasionally other people by telling stories.