{"id":19711,"date":"2023-03-15T13:16:41","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T21:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=19711"},"modified":"2023-03-15T13:17:30","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T21:17:30","slug":"be-uncomfortable-chase-ones-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/be-uncomfortable-chase-ones-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"Be uncomfortable; chase ones dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by: Dakota Gange <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHappiness can\u2019t be bought.\u201d The saying echoes and bounces off the walls of life, circling social media and often received in the form of advice from friends and family. The sentiment is supposed to be common knowledge, but why do so many of us stay in situations where we are unsatisfied?<\/span><\/p>\n

For me, it was prioritizing financial security that kept me from striving to achieve my dreams. Financial stability was such a strong force that gave me comfortability and peace of mind. Knowing I could eat and pay the bills helped me sleep better at night. Being a restaurant manager is a stimulating career. It\u2019s meticulous but has enough leniency for one to have a blast, all the while constantly being around others. It just wasn\u2019t what I wanted to do in the long-term.<\/span><\/p>\n

It can be a tangled and confusing mess to be stuck between stability and dreams. For those out there caught in the middle, perhaps it will bring some comfort knowing that I traded my comfortable decade-long, salaried career to chase my dreams through education without a stable paycheck.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I am reaching the summit of the mountain. I\u2019m only 29, but these past few years have been filled with a chest full of treasured lessons.<\/span><\/p>\n

For ten years now, I\u2019ve been building my skills and career in the customer service industry \u2014 quickly leading to a comfortable fiscal situation. I wasn\u2019t unhappy per se, I had a great time, but it just wasn\u2019t that exact puzzle piece I was looking for. I always knew it wasn\u2019t, but I still went to work every day and caught myself thinking, \u201cAm I really going to do this for the rest of my life? I can\u2019t do this for 80 percent of my life.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As comfortable as I was, the job was not without its share of unfulfillment. I had always wanted to go back to school, but it always turned into, \u201cOkay, next fall.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Then the pandemic hit in March 2020, and my life was forcefully shaken up. I was laid off from my salaried position, which was exactly the push I needed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I signed up for classes and immediately fell into a position of writing. Swiftly, I began taking journalism classes and writing for the school newspaper at Linn Benton, which quickly turned into a year of being the student voice editor, followed by a year of being the editor in chief.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here I led my Linn Benton team to place fifth in best general selection in the Associated Collegiate Press 2022 Nationals, judged by 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Green, followed by 21 first, second and third place Oregon National Press Association awards in best photos, best news and feature writing, best graphics, best review and more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Journalism and education led me to achieve things I never thought of.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After being laid off for several months, I returned to work part-time. Between being editor in chief and managing The Old Spaghetti Factory part-time, it was enough to maintain financial stability.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, when I got a call from my boss, asking me to return full-time, it was tempting to go back to that livable $60,000 salary and vacation pay. I was faced with the choice of my career or my education. I had 48 hours to decide, but I knew in a flutter of a heartbeat that I was never going back to solely managing restaurants.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We are meant to do so much more than just pay the bills. All too often do I hear stories of unhappiness, oftentimes due to working jobs we don\u2019t love.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here I am, a student, first-time mother of a toddler, extremely, fiscally uncomfortable and I couldn\u2019t be more content.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My happiness is found in chasing my dreams through education and what comes with that is all worth it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Contact the author at howlmanagingeditor@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":19712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[154],"class_list":["post-19711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-lifestyle"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}