- Starting at the bottom--over and over again
- Dealing with--and learning from--the Boss from Hell
- Giving up the Wedding Delusion, not to mention that one-way ticket to
Happily Ever After
- Being asked to bend your principles--by your superiors
- Wanting to be a high-powered success and super parent
- Knowing that children will both exhaust and sustain you
- Facing that terrifying question: "What have I been put on this earth
to do?"
You could call them notes from life's trenches. Maria Shriver's TEN
THINGS I WISH I'D KNOWN--BEFORE I WENT OUT INTO THE REAL WORLD gives us her
reflections, confessions, advice, memories, and, most of all, hard-earned
lessons...all the things we wish we knew before we started out, and that few
people ever honestly discuss.
Here is the truth about: the price we pay for giving in to our fears, as well
as the relief we feel when we finally face them; the humiliation of swallowing
our ego so that we can learn from an abusive experience; the rewards of taking
risks and the pain of failure; the joy of finding someone we can love and the
limitations of every relationship; how it's never too late to tap the wisdom of
others, even (especially!) our own parents; and the importance of taking what we
do seriously without taking ourselves seriously.
Expanded from Maria's acclaimed College of the Holy Cross commencement
address and written in the voice of a trusted and trusting best friend, TEN
THINGS I WISH I'D KNOWN--BEFORE I WENT OUT INTO THE REAL WORLD is a pithy,
poignant, down-to-earth, and at times laugh-out-loud book that will help people
of all ages and on all roads in life.
It's within you to carve out your own future, create your own destiny.
I wrote this book so that you might be spared. Not from having to learn the
lessons I had to learn. No one can spare you that, because learning is
experiential, and you have to do it yourself. As a wise person once told me: If
I could spare you the pain you're experiencing, I wouldn't--because I wouldn't
want to deprive you of the strength and wisdom you'll gain from having gone
through it and come out the other side.
Each and every one of you is a powerful, resilient human being capable of
living the life you design for yourself. I wish all of you the faith and the
courage to pinpoint your passion.
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