Take Charge of Your Life.

   Have you ever been put in a situation where some people want you to do one thing and other people want you doing something else?  Maybe you want to pursue your own passion instead of go to college and get a job, and your family wants you to stay and go to college because they view it as safe, but maybe you have a successful family member or friend who never went to college and learned how to do things their own way to do what they did to become successful.  You can do both but probably have trouble if you do them a the same time, after all doing both would please everybody.
What do you do?
   Theres two things you must know right away about taking charge of your life, 1: You have to make the choices for your life. 2: You can't please everyone, and if you try to you'll end up pleasing no one.  Understanding these 2 principles will make making decisions easier.  While at first it might sound simple it might not be easy, but implementing these into how you make decisions will make you succeed a lot more and make split second, smart decisions.  Using tool number 1 will give you the power to take more charge in your own life, if you let everyone tell you what to do your gonna be miserable and let them take advantage of you.  Tool number 2 can luckily be used in any area of life.  From fast food to corporations to politics, theres nothing that will everyone will agree on, we all have different beliefs.  having the knowledge of tool #2 can help greatly to decide how decisions should be for your life. 
   So lets implement these to the first paragraph, you have 99% of people around you telling you "go to college, and get a good safe job for 45 years."  (Keep in mind in the above story you think college and a good safe job isn't for you) You have everyone telling you to go, which is peer pressure for you, because you want to start a business or help people, but everyones telling you to do whats safe and with starting a business or helping thousands or millions of people is risky.  You have the chance to go bankrupt, have lawsuits filed against you, you have competition, you may have little money right now, and there are many who failed before you.  Everyone around you is telling you all this and you don't want to let them down right?  Thats your family and friends who only want you to live a safe life.  To put both of these rules together, its your life, not anyone else's, even if they want whats best in their eyes for you, if its no what you think your life is supposed to be about don't do it, you'll become sad in life just to make everyone else happy.  Although they may want you being safe, you have to pursue your dreams, even if it doesn't make everyone else happy, what matters is it makes you happy that you have the power to work everyday to pursue what you want to pursue.
  This was not a story on bashing going to college, I believe if thats your dream is to go to college and get a job you love, then do it!  If its your dream to do something that you love that doesn't involve college, then do it!  What I would hate to see is any of you reading this losing the dreams you have because you are doing what other people want you to do instead of living your life and following your passion.

   I hope you can take what I said here and use it in any area of your life, I would love to hear how these 2 tools helped you!