"I'm giving up a lot. Really making a sacrifice."
With a half laugh she combed her fingers through her hair.
"I finally figured that out, too. I'm leaving New York. You can't smell the grass there, or see horses grazing. You can't watch the light strike over the fields in a way that makes your throat hurt. I'm trading the sound of traffic for the sound of mockingbirds and larks. It's going to be real tough to live with that."
She stuffed her hands in her pockets and began to pace in a way that warned him not to touch
her. "My friends-acquaintances mostly, will think of me with amusement now and again and shake
their heads. Perhaps some of them will come to visit and see just what I've given up the fast lane
for. I'm trading that for family, for people I've felt closer to than almost anyone I've known. That's a bad deal all right."
She stopped, looking out between the stones as the warming sun burned off the mist. "Then there's my career, that all-important ladder to climb. Five years more, and I guarantee I would have had that metaphorical key to the executive washroom. No question, Shannon Bodine's got the drive, she's got the talent, she's got the ambition, and she doesn't blink at sixty-hour weeks. I've put in plenty of those weeks, Murphy, and it occurs to me that not one of them ever gave me the joy or the simple satisfaction I've felt since the first time I picked up a paintbrush here in Ireland. So I guess it's going to be real tough for me to turn in my Armani jacket for a smock."
Born in Shame
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By takato marui from Osaka, Japan (COFFEE and Office Lady) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
One writer learned the hard way that overachievement can become a nasty addiction.
It takes time and a lot of trial and error, some of it painful. But the first step is recognizing when the type of success you’re pursuing doesn’t make you feel happy, fulfilled, or valuable. There’s probably something else that will—you just need to find it.