TIME - Today Is Made (to) Engage

I went off to college a single, but ambitious girl looking to make a good life for myself and my future family. As planned, I graduated from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley with high honors and secured a great job before I graduated. My future was looking bright as I stepped out of the academic world and into Corporate America. I felt prepared and excited for what the future held for me and was so looking forward to finally having my own real paycheck. And as planned, I worked hard and watched my titles advance along with my paycheck and bonuses. I could finally afford luxuries and there was some sort of satisfaction in that. 20 years in and I had created a solid reputation in the oil and gas industry and enjoyed the challenge BUT when my future family (i.e. a husband and two kids) actually became a reality, the competing demands became a personal struggle. I was unprepared and ill-equipped for the mental and emotional battle that would ensue in my head and heart. Career vs family. How do you prioritize and is balance even possible?

For several years, I just did the best that I could, but it felt like my career always took priority and I just paid someone else to carry some of the extra family responsibilities. Daycare, house cleaner, takeout food -- those were necessary expense items to help create a little balance and I squeezed quality family time into what little pockets I could find. The fact that I was an employee and someone else signed my paycheck created a promissory note on my end that my responsible nature could not default on. The problem was the people I loved most made the biggest sacrifice and it left me feeling conflicted. I felt guilty that my kids spent more time with other people and worried that those people might end up having a stronger voice in influencing their future decisions than my husband and I. I wanted to be more present but did not know how that was possible and shuttered to think about the future when our kid's needs would become even more time-consuming. How do we fit things like after-school sports and homework when we barely feed our kids nutritious meals? The purposeful parts of life felt so rushed all the time for me, but I did not see a way out of the cycle except for giving up the career I had worked so hard to build. And that scared me because I enjoyed the mental challenge of working and the fruits that a paycheck afforded. I just did not like the time commitment (especially when I considered the number of years to retirement) and the fact that I felt more obligated to my work than my family. Everything felt a bit upside-down in what I wanted to stand for. The question I landed on was this: was there a solution for work-life balance that would allow me to put my family first and still earn a respectable income?

Then life happened. Or should I say cancer? It came like a vigilante and for 3 years tortured my family from two sides. By the end of it's reign, two of my sisters were widowed. One boy was without a father. And I decided enough was enough. As I stared at the face of cancer on my 43 year old brother-in-law, I fearlessly walked away from my inflexible and demanding corporate career and decided if ever I was going to put my family first - this was going to be it. I gave up my glorious job title in favor of helping my sisters during their crisis and decided to pursue a flexible entrepreneurial opportunity that would allow me to prioritize life around the things that matter most to me. In some ways, I had to start over but what I found was that in doing so, I was putting things right side up for my family. I tore up my promissory note and took a chance on me and priorities I want to have in life. I learned a valuable life lesson from cancer and that is living for someday is not a risk I want to take anymore. I saw a quote that resonated with me, "Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life" and that really struck a chord. I wanted to start living - truly living. I wanted to experience life now and make meaningful things the priority. I started looking at time and it took on a whole new mantra - TIME: Today Is Made (to) Engage. Today...not tomorrow or someday. Today.

I share my story of loss with gratitude because it taught me the value of living fearlessly right here and right now. And I hope that by sharing this story, it will awaken people to the risk of putting things off or living in a state of unhappiness and/or unfulfillment. Life is meant to be lived "all in". You get one crack at making your life experience meaningful and I hope that by sharing, some people might be inspired enough to put a premium on their TIME. If you are unsatisfied, take a chance to make a change or investigate other options. Don't wait for something devastating to give you perspective. Find the things that make your heart tick. Invest in relationships that matter. Make your time count - and do it today.

About the author: Marie Walti empowers a team of entrepreneurs to own their time, design life on their terms and create legacy lives. She started The MW Lifestyle as a platform to inspire people through wisdom, stories, faith and core principles that will engage people to find hope, purpose and confidence. You can follow her on Facebook at https://facebook.com/TheMWLifestyle and on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCijm6drkfTh9fS5FWwm4Ljg