Who Designed Your Route To Success?

Lacey Stanwick was invited to motivate the graduating class of Collingswood University. She was encouraged by her best friend Paula.

“I know you hate public speaking, but these are young innocent minds who need a spoonful of wisdom from us ol. . ....? Paula held onto the D.

Lacey threw her a stern look, and she said, “Us mature women.”

“Nice recovery,” Lacey said with a smile.

Staring at more than three hundred eager minds, their spongelike brain unprepared for the struggles and cruelty of our world.

Breathing heavily for courage, as her internal organs shivered. A female voice called out, “I have followed your career for the past ten years. I notice you hardly talk, and you never reveal how and why you’re successful.”

Her words ignited a spark, and something eased through Lacey’s body. She felt relaxed as her memory door opened and she eased back and absorbed the message.

“Success route is different for all of us. My route, how, why, or journey to success is designed for me. Not you, not her, not him, only for me.”

“But how can you know that it won’t work for others?” the same female asked.

Lacey stared at her, reading her emotion, then asked, “What is your reason for success?”

She sighed, then said, “I want a better life than the one fate and destiny handed to me.”

“How far will you go to get it?”

Silence was pursued, and Lacey interjected, “I have been working since I was twelve years old. When it was prom time, I saved up some money to buy myself a dress. A week before the prom, I went to the Boutique to purchase my dress. With the money I had, there were only two dresses there for that price. One was too small and the other was too big.”

Lacey paused reading their expressions. Smiled to herself and then went on, “I had two choices. I could starve myself for one week to fit into the dress that was too small. Or I could find a way to alter the one that’s too big.”

“The dress that was too small, was it beautiful?” several females questioned.

“It was fit for a princess,” Lacey recalls.

“I would starve myself for one week to fit in that dress,” a few voices in the audience said.

“Raise your hands for the ones who would starve themselves,” Lacey suggested.

Males were on the left and females on the right. Only one female hand didn’t go up. She was the female who asked about her success route.

On the male side, half of the males’ hands went up.

Lacey points to the female who didn’t raise her hand, “Why would you choose the dress that was too big?”

“The same reason you did,” she fired back.

“And what reason is that?”

“You were aware that life won’t give you what you want. Only you can do that for yourself.”

Shock held Lacey’s heart, mind, and soul, and she shoved it back with a smile, then asked, “What’s your name?”

“Crystal Hamlin,” she said, smiling.

“Yes, I was aware that only I can give myself what I want. As you go out into the world, some of us will get only one choice. Others will get two. For the smaller dress, starving yourself for one week to fit into a dress for a moment of pleasure is a dangerous risk.”

“One week won’t kill us. I had a lot of fun at my prom,” a female voice in the front row said. Others agreed.

“Your life will be packed with dangerous risks. Putting your health at risk for a dress or a job will be in the mix,” Lacey explained.

“What did you do with the dress you chose?” Crystal asked.

“My grandmother was a seamstress, I took it to her and she made two dresses out of it,” Lacey recalls.

“Wow!” Many in the audience exclaimed.

“My finance imposed limits on me. Life will do the same for you,” Lacey informs. “But I didn’t impose any limits on my imagination, creativity, or my ability to be innovative. I sold the other dress to my best friend for the price I paid for the original dress.”

“So, you got a free dress,” Crystal said.

“I gave my grandmother half of the money for her services,” Lacey informs them.

“And you made a profit,” Crystal said.

“Life never gives us what we want. It gives us what we need. Only we can give ourselves what we want. And that action comes with challenges, pain, disappointment, failure, regrets, strength, determination, ambition, and more,” Lacey educates.

“So, it’s our mindset that will determine if your method of success will work for others,” Crystal questioned.

“Our thinking can be a friend or a foe that can hand us success, or send us failure. My life gave me the best solution to succeed. Your life should give you one too.”

“But still, many of us fail with our best solution.”

“Success is not guaranteed to anyone, no matter how many times they try. But it belongs to the ones who never gave up!”

“So, you are successful because you stayed in the game?”

“It’s more than a game, but yes, and I knew how to play it too.”

“So, life is indeed a game?” Crystal remarked.

“And successful people know how to play it,” Lacey educates. “As you go out into our world, you will face many games. You can create/design your own, master it, and play it your way, with your beat, your style, your dance, and your music. Or you can choose the one life imposes/designs for you, and move to life’s rhythms. But choose one and learn how to play it like a pro!”

The audience cheered her, throwing their caps in the air.

Lacey signals to Crystal to meet her outside. She found her replacement!

Yes, life is a game. You can create your own and play it your way. Or the one life hands you. My success was designed for me by my thinking, actions, choices, decisions, likes, dislikes, wants, needs, determination, wisdom, personality, and everything else about me.

Yours will be designed for you, by you!