Tom Kawczynski - Off the Record

This is a little premature, but I will be celebrating my 29th birthday on Monday.  With each year, I always sit back and reflect upon what I have learned and how I have grown in the past year.  There always seems to be something new.

This has been a productive year and I find things are moving in the direction I want in all areas in my life.  I find that being stubborn and determined is a big part of making that possible, but I've learned something even more important:  You can't sacrifice who you are for what you want to be.

Smart people sometimes find their lives going astray because they make bad bargains with themselves.  We sell ourselves into believing that if we don't do things a certain way, they cannot be done.  It's a very easy argument to make that the ends justify the means, and it is usually wrong.  How you do things determines who you are as a person, and if there is one thing I'm learning, it is that how you arrive somewhere is usually more vital than where you are going.

I worry less because of this.  It is okay if not everything succeeds if you did what mattered to you.  In politics, in life, and in anything else, I think this rings true.  This above all else:  to thine ownself be true.