Things Will Get as Good as You Can Stand by Laura Doyle

Author:Laura Doyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2004-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

When Your Brain and Your Heart Argue,

Your Heart Always Wins

WHILE DESIRES THEMSELVES are not dangerous, ignoring them can be. Trying to squelch them not only wastes your time and energy, it can be downright embarrassing to admit that you were less than authentic when your truth comes out—as it almost always will.

Margaret and her husband were both high-powered executives when they conceived their first child. Margaret realized that the maternity-leave program where she worked was terrible, and she fought to make a company-wide change that would afford her more flexibility after the baby came. Other women in the company were grateful for the sweeping changes she instigated; however, Margaret herself never got to enjoy the spoils of her victory because as soon as the baby was born, she turned to her husband and said, “I’m never going back to work.”

That was sixteen years ago, and she never did.

Margaret was mortified to have to share this news with her employer, who was understandably upset by this sudden change of plans after she had implemented the leave program that Margaret wanted. Margaret could have avoided the embarrassment if she had acknowledged what she had felt nearly nine months before the birth of her baby: that she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

“I realize now that I knew it then,” Margaret says, “but I tried to talk myself out of it, to tell myself to be logical. But seeing my baby’s face made it impossible to ignore my heart.”

Karen had a similar experience. She had convinced herself that she didn’t want to get married. She even made a list of a hundred reasons not to get married, which she enumerated on dates. She did this because she thought that guys liked women who were independent, and that this would remove their fears about whether she was trying to trap them into getting married. So instead of a true desire, Karen was saying what she thought men wanted to hear; as a result, no one proposed marriage or even wanted to date her for very long.

Finally, a married woman told her that it was okay to want to be married. Karen could no longer ignore her own truth—that she very much wanted to be married to the right man. That made all the difference. Shortly thereafter, she met Kevin, started a wonderful romance, and was happily engaged within seven months.

See how powerful it is to honor your true desires?

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.

—G ARRISON KEILLOR

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