Sometimes our dreams need a little revision to fit in with the reality of our lives. I was a music major & got my AA in music.....thought that playing in a symphony would be a wonderful career......but my talent wasn't good enough for the competition. I could have gotten discouraged, but I put my energy into figuring out another path for my life. Ended up getting my BS degree & becoming a firmward design engineer with my accounting/computer science BS degree for 15 years until the aerospace industry fell apart in California & my technical abilities weren't what the hiring market wanted.

I went into a deep depression, but my music & playing my flute helped get me through that horrible time...not financially, but it helped to give me a place to release my emotions expressivly.

I ended up having horses...have moved to KY.....but can't afford to move my horses here due to a lot of bad financial things that have happened. I am working on not getting discouraged right now as it feels like it will never happen. I just keep my focus on things I can do that will help me realize my goal & when I start feeling myself get too discouraged, I find something to do that gives me something else to focus on so that I can't think so constantly on the fact that I can't seem to get my horses here.....one if my filly that was born 5 years ago & I bonded with her so much, I really miss her beyond what words can express. Other times when I get really discouraged feeling, I just play with my dogs & try to give them all the love I have.

What I have realized is that we never really KNOW how things are going to turn out. We just need to be flexible along the way so that we can adapt to the way things are going & focus on the path that our life ends up taking. We can guide that path as much as possible to fit out talents & the things that we do desire to keep us from complete discouragement. In life there will always be some things that we feel discouraged about.....but mostly, we need to figure out what we need to do to either make that dream come true or create another goal that is more realistic to focus on rather than dwelling on the discouragement of something that isn't possible.

In otherwords, we need to focus on life in the reality of what it is & what is really possible, maybe we can enjoy the things in a different way than what the original dream was so that we can still enjoy those things in a different way than what we originally had pictured.....(be flexible).

Enjoy life & find ways to enjoy the things you like to do......that helps keep the discouragement at a minimum. Don't regret the things that didn't happen because there are always even better things in the future that will come but we just don't know about them yet.