Have you ever come to a crossroads where you had to make a tough choice?

[mtnsnake]

Did you make the practical choice, or did you do what you wanted to do deep inside?

If you're having trouble deciding between two good choices, listen to your heart...and do what your heart tells you to. This is the best advice I ever got from someone around 25 years ago (Another thread here tonight got me thinking about this).

Anyway, I was at a crossroads in my life way back then, and needed to make a decision one night as to which way I'd go career wise. I had two choices: I could either remain at a good-paying construction job I had, which was a job I didn't really like......or I could start up my own business with next to nothing in my pocket and take a big chance on something I liked doing.

The first choice, staying at the construction job, was the practical choice. With it, I could provide for my wife and two very young children making decent money doing something I didn't like (I've got nothing against construction, it just wasn't for me).

The second choice was something I had long thought about doing, which was going into business for myself. This was not practical at the time, since we were broke. That was the choice I wanted to do deep inside, but was afraid of taking the chance. I'd lose my present job security by doing this, and might not make much money at first. My wife was in full support of either choice but I still couldn't make the decision. That's when I ran into this new negihbor of mine, a former stock broker who had gone through the rat race in the city with the "bigger than the Joneses" thing...the bigger house than the neighbors, the bigger boat, etc, and he still wasn't happy. He decided to trade all that away to become a piano tuner in the country, something he loved doing and something that made he and his family happy, although he would no longer be as wealthy money-wise. Anyway, I told him my predicament, and he just looked up at me and told me, "Whatever you decide, go with your heart. If you do that, you can't go wrong." He was right. I took his advice and never looked back.

What about you when you come to a crossroads? Do you do what's practical, what everyone else thinks is best for you?........or do you do what your own heart tells you to do? Now don't go quitting your job tomorrow, or anything. Yikes! But if you become stumped when it comes decision time for just about anything important, try listening to what your heart tells you. I just felt like sharing that with you guys and seeing if any of you have ever used that kind of decision making philosophy, or if you have some other kind you wanna share.

[forgethell]

1. You made the right choice.

For years I stayed in a job I hated. I made enough to live on and support a family, but was never happy. Fortunately, when the opportunity finally came (I had been looking and working toward it for years) I jumped for it, and am now better paid, and much happier.

The "wasted years" weren't really wasted, either, though. I apply a lot of what I learned on the job to what I do now. I went back to school and got a PH.D. I made contacts, and most importantly, I looked for the job.

[Aristus]

2. I came to a fork in the road once.

I took it.


:7

[LisaM]

3. That's a great story. What is the business you chose?

I think I am at a crossroads point myself. I feel that I don't have control over my time these days and that has to change.

[mtnsnake]

6. Buying and selling things

Before I decided to go for it full time, I had it in my mind to buy anything and re-sell it for a profit and then re-invest it all into buying something else, re-selling that, re-investing the money from that and so on until I built up a little nest egg. It didn't really matter what the item was, as long as I bought it at a price where I could turn around and re-sell it at a higher price. As it turned out at the time, antiques were the thing that worked out best for me, so that's what I mostly ended up buying and selling, but not through a retail shop. I pretty much spent my 5 days a week buying, and then would wholesale them in bulk through auctions. Selling is the easy part when you're running them through auctions. Finding them and getting them bought at the right price is the trick, but it worked out fine. Lots of running the roads on a continuous treasure hunt and lots of knocking doors. In case you're wondering, no huge scores like you see on the Roadshow, but lots of decent little scores, lol. Nowadays I'm still doing the same thing, only I'm always keeping my eyes open for any bargain I can turn around and re-sell, even things such as small pieces of land or almost anything. The thing I always do is search for pieces I can buy right and then turn around and sell them quickly. Finding antiques is my specialty, still, though.

[LisaM]

8. Wow, that sounds fun and actually do-able

I like antiques - they are really expensive in the Pacific NW, too.

[HEyHEY]

4. Yeah

I was offered a job and didn't take it

[KG]

5. i've come to several forks in the road of life, sometimes

i took the wrong one, sometimes i took the right one...

[Magrittes Pipe]

7. I chose to sell my soul to the devil for some mad guitar skills.

Fucker ripped me off. :(