“If I would have met you in my twenties I would have given up all of my dreams for you,” I said to my boyfriend in the kitchen as I wondered about my future.

He frowned, “Why do you say that?”

“I just meant to say that when I was young your love would have been the only thing that mattered.” I felt both guilt and regret for saying what I feel out loud. I didn’t want him to think I might leave him for a better opportunity, but I will need a better opportunity if I cannot find a way to make my current situation work. It is not working.

You know your life is not working when you are standing in front of an empty fridge and you don’t have any money to change it. You know your life is not working when you owe Santa Clause money and I promise you that I do. Everything you are reading right now is true, my life really happening, and yet I know in my heart I am not really failing. How can I fail when I am the girl with the $10 million plan?

So what is the plan?

1. I am going to be a photographer

2. If that business fails I will become a writer

3. If I can’t sell any books I will go back to college to become a lawyer. I will specialize in business law.

4. If I can’t afford college I will be a photographer that writes a book about how she found a way to attend Harvard for free, majoring in, every subject that promotes global success. The more I fail the higher I will reach, because if I make it to number four on this list I promise you it will be to change the world. There is no good reason that I shouldn’t be able to succeed with the first three goals if I am diligent and able to produce a product of value. If I can’t, then by golly it must be the system. I’ll take on any challenge as long as I still have a life of value.

I don’t think many of you realize that my $10 million plan is not about making money. It’s the value I gave my life at a time when I felt worthless, at a time when I was lost and felt like giving up. I had no one in the world to count on except myself and I didn’t honestly know if I could survive. I write about suicide like it’s something I ponder too often and I will tell you that once is all anyone ever needs to be stuck with the option and it is real if you’ve ever entertained it. I see my life like this. I don’t owe any of you anything. I was here and you let life hurt me. If I want to go I will go. My life is my own right.

“Are you trash?”

I contemplate suicide now to the length of my own value.

“Is your life worth less than trash to the extent of allowing yourself to be discarded as waste? Are you trash Amber?”

“No. I am not trash.”

“What is it then? Why can ‘t you be brave enough to see your years through. Are you a coward then if you are not trash?”

I’m irritated now, “No. I’m not afraid. I know what is coming and it’s not something I can change. We all die. Maybe I got used to the fact I only have enough time, when I realized there would never be enough time. Maybe I am smart and free of all ego. Maybe I already know that my competition deserves to have room to thrive. I am dust in the wind, let me be carried away from too many people. My life has no more value than that of my brother, and if I am to look out and see that I am less than equal, well then, by all means let me die to make room for someone with more to offer this life I am rumored to have willingly squandered. If I am not living up to my full potential then I shouldn’t waste even one more breath, nor should I take from a world that does not have enough when it is looked at as a whole instead of sections of potential.” My anger festers until I am brazen, except I don’t care less, I care more.

“The people around you will only have the value you give yourself, Amber. You dishonor all you claim to praise by keeping yourself lower.”

 

“Am I not lower? The statistics tell me I am.”

“Which statistics? As you keep pointing out, death is a statistic we all flat line with. Do you need to be included in the biggest majority in order to know your own worth by life? Do you walk out of your front door every day seeing score boards? Look out at your neighbors and rank their success next to yours and then tell me without ego who should be given more in life and who should deserve less. What do you deserve Amber?”

“I deserve at the very least to be happy. If I am going to be here in a life with only one ending, can I at least be happy in the years I have left?”

“I think that sounds fair and if life were fair I would agree with you, yes, you should at least be happy. May I ask you what you would like to do to make that happen? If happiness is your goal in life can you tell me how you can use the years your life has given you to find joy?”

 

“Yes.” I acknowledge, secure in my purpose.

These are the steps I will take to live a happy life.

So what is the plan?

1. I am going to be a photographer

2. If that business fails I will become a writer

3. If I can’t sell any books I will go back to college to become a lawyer. I will specialize in business law.

4. If I can’t afford college I will be a photographer that writes a book about how she found a way to attend Harvard for free, majoring in, every subject that promotes global success. The more I fail the higher I will reach, because if I make it to number four on this list I promise you it will be to change the world. There is no good reason that I shouldn’t be able to succeed with the first three goals if I am diligent and able to produce a product of value. If I can’t, then by golly it must be the system. I’ll take on any challenge as long as I still have life of value.

   Love is the security of knowing you can’t have love unless you live it.