All Roads Lead to Rome. Rule #5

"There's no getting around it. Sometimes, in life, if you take risks, if you go big, you're going to screw up. You're going to do the wrong thing. And the beauty is that sometimes, the wrong thing can lead you straight to what's right, even when you think there's no hope, or that you're going completely in the wrong direction."

-Bethenny Frankel, A Place of Yes

I have had many times in my life that I took the long road. The much more challenging journey opposed to the straight and narrow. My biggest example of this would have to be the 8 year journey to finish my college degree. It was a long lesson and one that I am proud of because it was something I needed to learn on my own. It took several years of hard work and a meaningless job that got me back on the road to "Rome" in order to finish my degree. But, I'm incredibly happy I did it. And I did it on my own. It was difficult. And challenging. And rewarding.

I think there is something to this chapter, about how even if you do take the longer road, eventually you will get where you are suppose to be.

Bethenny enrolled in culinary school mainly to avoid her fiance at the time and give her something to do. She had always loved cooking and so she thought this would be a good way to {one} pass the time {two} learn more about something she was interested in. Did she ever think she would end up making a career out of healthy living and eating well? Absolutely not.

Bethenny shares her rise and fall of Bethenny Bakes, a cookie company she ran solely by herself and how her great idea failed. She worked hard to make healthy cookies by renting out the kitchen of a near by restaurant, packing and delivering them (in a $500 Blazer), along with marketing them to some big name/mom and pop stores in the business. She put her all in this business but evidently she couldn't keep up with the physical demand of it all or the inability to make a profit. Her problem? Bethenny says she never had a plan, wasn't able to move on to a bigger market or hire a real crew.

But she eventually found her great idea. And eventually made it. The point is, she found her "Rome" and learned alot along the way. And while she took the longer road, she still somehow ended up where she needed to be. With a little bit of extra knowledge too.

This makes me feel a little better about my road to Rome.

"Winning isn't everything, but the will to win is everything."

-Vince Lombardi-

I am learning that if you don't give it your all, if you don't go for your's, if you sit on the sidelines and wait for good things in life to happen to you, you might possibly be waiting your whole life. You may miss out on so many opportunities and lovely mistakes that your family and friends will remind you of forever, but isn't that what makes life interesting? :)