I am blessed with so much but have also gone through many challenges of life, as a woman much more than a man can endure, and have triumphed.

 

My journey as a grown up started very early on when I became a young mother at 18, and you would think I would be lost with no direction, envious of my friends that were going to college and/or overseas to follow their dreams.   I was the only one married with a child from the Nazareth High School graduating class, and though it seemed odd, I thought my life was good.  Since then I have lived for my children and my family.  My children became my motivation, my drive to excel regardless of the many challenges I faced in life. I could overcome knowing I was fending for them.  I matured raising them.

Like most of us women I gave up my identity, gave up my goals and aspirations and succumb to meeting the needs and/or making the needs of my family a priority, waiting for “My Turn”.  I dare say I was not career oriented and not focused, but most of what I did in life was to satisfy the desires of others… and I did it out of love and the responsibility that came with being a woman, a mother, a wife… again like most of us women!

 

And then again the question, when is “My Turn”?  was surfacing more in conversations in my circle.  For some who are in a rut, it never happens unless there is a conscious effort put forth to transform their existing condition.  For others, it happens in an instant since all their efforts is reciprocated by…!  And for some of us, we make it happen!

 

“My Turn” came three years ago when I decided to pursue my lifelong dream of getting my PhD. This was just for me… might sound selfish but it was one thing I believed was all mine. I have wanted to be called Dr. Roman Kifle since I was in the 8th grade. Mind you, then, I wanted to be a Medical Doctor… come to find out the sight of blood appalled me, and the universe had its own way of telling me that I was not meant to be that, that it was not the right time, and took me in a different path. A path that brought me to the present moment, where I have and feel accomplished.  I did it!  I received my PhD in Transformational Leadership on June 6th 2015.  It was an arduous but worthwhile journey,  a journey worth travelling where the success of completing with all the challenges of technology, sleepless nights, taking virtual classes at 2, 3, 4 am in the morning, and let us not forget the amazing wonders,  and also the  trials and tribulations  of everyday life!

 

Though quite overwhelming then, has left me elated, thrilled and on top of the world.  So, if I can do it, so can you!   Not necessarily a Phd but pursue your goal… whatever it might be. What is important is focus, what is important is to live a purposeful life, what is important is to recognize that life has to be  lived and that we have choices, that we all have to have “Our Turn”  to fill fulfilled,  so we can fully be present to help other pursue theirs.