This Is Your Life Pearl

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Story "Yeah, I'm sure that will work out great" a classmate sarcastically remarked. The room roared with laughter. In his final day of high school, my brother Brandon had just revealed his plans to skip college and, instead, move to Arizona to help me with ZOX full time. Brandon didn't tell me that story til years later - I think he used the echoes of those laughs in his mind as motivation - a burning desire to prove his classmates wrong. From my perspective, the thing I appreciate just as much as the motivation is the spirit in which he did it - it was his life, and he'd do what he believed was best. All of us, at one point or another, have gone through times in our lives where it feels like the expectations of others are suffocating us. Rather than be happy because you are, they question how well you've thought something out that seems 'too different' to them. In my own life, I'm guilty of this - from time to time I catch myself thinking about my brothers and the decisions they make. Yes, I'm the oldest (and obviously the wisest) bro, but rather than put them down for thinking different, I try to encourage it. I let them paint their own canvas. If I'm honest - sometimes giving them that leeway to figure things out for themselves is incredibly difficult. Experience makes it easy for us to feel like someone simply 'isn't listening' to us when we've already been through a similar situation. On the flip side - I've discovered something even more valuable - sometimes I'm wrong. Sometimes they surprise me and show me a different way of looking at something that I hadn't noticed before. That, in itself, is an incredible reward. My hope for you in this month's Pearl is that this little hug will help you reflect on what you want your life to be. Don't be discouraged by the opinions of others and don't take it personally if they don't understand. If life itself is a beautiful canvas, your decisions are the brushstrokes that give it value.

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