Good Tuesday Morning -
Selling out. When I was younger, that was maybe the worst criticism that you could level at someone - that they had sold out. I never really knew anyone who had truly "sold out", mainly because everyone was working so hard just to make ends meet for their family. No one really cashed in at the expense of their friends and neighbors and took off.
When I finished college and took my first big kid job, I remember there being some shade about me leaving West Virginia - did I think I was too good for this place? - but in reality, I had already put some time in the mining and timber side of the world, and had decided that chances were, unless I got lucky and ended up in a spot where I could "sell out", that the job would quit on me way before I was ready to quit on it.
Time passed, and I managed to find my way back to West Virginia on my own terms, and when I did I knew the score. I made sacrifices to be here, because I wanted to figure out a way to give back, to try and make this place better for kids like me - kids that wanted to pursue their dreams, but do it in West Virginia.
Now the whispers come back: "Is this place not good enough for you? Why would you want to change it?"; "Even if you succeed at what you're doing, it's just going to sell the rest of us out..."
I'll admit, that's tough on me, because a lot of the choices I've made were because I felt like I owed it to my friends, and my family that live here, to try. To try like Hell to make this place better for all of us.
In the end, I've learned that this is all I can do. If I make what I think is the best decision at every step along the way - not the easiest, not the most immediately gratifying, but what looks like the best - then the result is likely to be a good one.
Love y'all. Hope your holiday is awesome.
Clearing Storm - West Virginia