Optimism Thought of the Week

For Sunday, August 23, 2015

We Can Only Estimate

By Glennel Hardy

I received an email from my mentor this morning whom is a managing partner in a law firm. We both attended our first semester of undergraduate together at Loyola University, but after my first semester I decided to continue to just work full-time.  My mentor continued on graduating from Loyola, and then from law school.  Over the past 19 years since we have remain connected, and he has been a vital ingredient in my growth.

Within those 19 years, I went back to school, but then again had placed other things first. I sought out advice from Chris, and the best advice he gave me was that even if I take just one class at a time, I must continue on.  I eventually did graduate from Arizona State, and even when I thought I was done, I continued on to seek after my masters.

If you were to ask me 19 years ago what would I estimate my life to be, I would say to be working somewhere full-time.  I would not have any further aspirations beyond that, because at that time what I placed as priorities, are no longer at the top of the list.

We can only estimate what our life may look like tomorrow, we have to examine what belongs, and what must be taken away.  Can we look beyond today, and dream what tomorrow may look like? Yes.  Can we predict what will happen tomorrow? No.

We can only estimate, but even our estimations may fall short or exceed what we had thought was ever possible.  I am betting on the latter, we will fall short of estimations, but we learn from it, and our next time around we will beat the expectations. The more we use that strength the stronger we become.