Remember that point in your life around 16 or 17 in high school when you had that question and talk with your parents, or even a school counselor?
What are your plans for going to college after you graduate they would ask?
How did you answer that question?
Like many, you had no idea. Remember taking the SAT or the ACT and all the pressure on you to do well on this scholastic test?
Then the point came along when the results were in, and you and your parents started making decisions on “Where” you would go to college.
Perhaps you took a weekend together to go visit some town to tour a university campus. The journey together was enlightening.
You then began to really understand from your parents what was possible. What they wanted.
Well, what did you want?
The goal was to be far enough away from the parents, so they could not just drop by to say hi or for a quick surprise visit.
Did you ever hear, you are going to have to work and pay for your own college?
Thinking back to that time, maybe you had only one choice.
Yet now that you are a college graduate in your thirties and beyond, maybe you too have reflected on your own choices then.
Are you working every day now to pay the bills and to save up for your next major vacation or putting away savings for your next investment?
So what?
Are you planning your next life accomplishment that will make a difference for you and those you care so much about, or in a decade from now?
Thinking back, there was never a clear warning on global impact events such as 9/11 and War, the 2007-2008 financial crisis or a recent health pandemic or drought.
"Whether you have now survived the “War on Terror” or the greatest economic and job loss crisis since the “Great Depression” of 1929 or some natural environmental disaster does not truly matter."
Maybe a routine medical procedure recommended to relieve pain or to fix and old injury.
Maybe it is just a 20 minute car drive to school or work.
What you need to really realize now, is that your own personal “Operational Risks” are with you every second of every minute of every hour of your life.
How you as an individual manage risks and become more resilient each day, to the inevitable future challenges, events and people you will encounter in your life, is your decision and in your complete control.
Some individuals will know this better than others. Based upon the answers they heard from their high school counselors and also a parent growing up.
These are the same adults in your life, who have also endured and sacrificed so much, to make the world a better place for you.
