All You Want is Within Your Reach by Chris Widener
If there is one thing that I believe with all my heart it is that you can have any life you choose to. You can live the life you have always dreamed of.
We live in a period of unparalleled opportunity in human history. Think about it: Just one hundred years ago, most people really only had five or six options when it came to deciding what they would do with their lives. For most, they didn't even have the knowledge that they could do anything other than take over their father's farm when they turned eighteen!
But today a person living in the western world (and many other areas of the world as well) can choose to do virtually anything they want to! They key is the word "choose."
You see, the world is within your reach. Any job you want can be yours if you decide. All of the opportunities are there for the taking. The question is whether or not you will take.
You say, "But Chris, you just don't understand. I'm thirty-eight years old with two kids and I have bills to pay. I make $28,000 a year. I can't just go become a doctor and make big money!"
And I say, "Yes you can! If you decide to. If you will take action you can become a doctor or anything else you want to. We live in a day and age when virtually anything is possible."
For the sake of highlighting this principle, let's look at the above example. How would this person change careers? Simple. Here is the process in specific action steps:
1. Find out from a medical school what classes you would need to take to get in. Chances are your college major would need some rounding out or if you didn't go to college, you would need to do so. Maximum time to do this: 3 days.
2. Now, go to school. Maximum time to do this: 4 years.
3. Now, medical school and residency. Maximum time to do this: 6 years.
4. Begin practicing medicine.
At this point you would be forty-eight years old. That leaves you seventeen years to practice. Now let's see the impact it has on your life:
1. You get to pursue your dream, making you and your family MUCH happier.
2. You will make, on average, $100,000 more per year. The difference here is manifold! If you stayed where you were, you would have earned $28,000 a year for twenty-seven years and would earn $756,000. If you left and pursued your dream you would earn $128,000 for seventeen years (That's if you took ten years to make the transition. Most would be less.) and you earnings would be $2,176,000! This is a difference of $1,420,000! And this doesn't even take into consideration the amounts you would earn on investments on the difference in incomes.
So is it possible? Yes. Does it take time? Yes. Is it hard? Yes. Is it scary? Yes, and that is why most people won't do it.
It isn't for lack of opportunity. It is usually because of one of the following:
Lack of vision.
Lack of tenacity.
Fear.
The truth is that you can do anything you want to. Stop telling yourself excuses! Go to battle against a lack of vision! Pick yourself up and get tenacious! Look fear in the face and stand up to it! Your whole life depends on it, my friend!
The choice is yours. Will you continue to limp along in life because you don't have the courage to run for your dream? Will you continue to allow the fear of poverty keep you from pursuing the riches, both materially and emotionally, that lay within the vision you have of what your life could be?
You CAN live the life you have always dreamed of. All you want is within your reach. But to pick it up, you must first empty your hands of what they already hold. Then you must reach for it, take a hold of it, and possess it!
Chris Widener
