Short Story About Achieving a Goal

There once was this mom who loved her life of spending loads of time with her kids and teaching a couple of courses at the local university. The university kept telling her that she didn't have the appropriate letters after her name, and if she didn't get them, she would lose that fun and easy job. So she started on this journey to get the three magical letters: p, h, and d.

She learned a lot more than she thought she would. The process of finding the letters was also a lot longer and more expensive than she had anticipated. The journey often felt lonely and too difficult to possibly be worth it. Fortunately her friends and family always rallied to her side, encouraged her, and after six years of slogging away on this, she's made it to the last stretch.

Having the three letters within her grasp now feels good -- a goal set and achieved always does. Marking off each step along the way also feels rewarding. Crossing out "successfully defend dissertation" felt fabulous.

There are many lessons from this experience, and one of them is to live life every day, not just after you cross off the goal. For while completing it is great, it does not make up for a life not lived. Fortunately, the heroine of this short story feels confident that she did indeed, live her life throughout the whole process.

And while she is happy to have this part behind her, the happiness comes from the daily decision to be happy now. And while daily euphoria may be out of reach, a daily dose of happiness is surely fuel for achieving all your goals.