“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”
Many people don’t know the struggles that I went through to finally get the breakthrough I was after.
All this meteoric rise didn’t happen overnight.I was faced with hundreds of roadblocks along the path.
One of the most memorable places, I should have said: airport, airport floor to be precise. I spent many times sleeping overnight at the airport, including on the cold floor just to saved money for my trips. Yes, money was really tight at that time, every penny counted.
I want my children can grow up as a strong person so when I took Chloe for my business trip to Manila, we flew with low-cost airlines. It was quite a big step for 7 years old helping me dragging all the pieces of luggage, no full service, and no priority VIP lane.
To make matter worse, for a budget flights, they have ungodly departure times that require us to stay overnight at the airport. On that time, it was more than 2 hours delay so we didn’t get into the airplane until around 2 am. Normally Chloe’s bedtime is 8 pm ..
Finding an electricity plug? Oh gosh, believe me, finding a diamond ring is easier than finding an electricity plug at the airport at late night since that’s the number one spot for all travelers to claim. We went to the Starbucks, ordered the biggest size of coffee available so we can share and sit for hours, a ton of electricity plug over there.
I taught her that buying 1 of the biggest size is cheaper than buying two of the small size.
One of my fave quote that I keep repeating to her on our journey was :
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
–Randy Pausch
I need to take her more often on this kind of business trips, maybe next time is my little one turn, Sophietje or the oldest one, broer Nigel.
Ps: tag Maulina Riema Herpatria, still remember our memorable time on the airport floor at SEA?
