How I Achieved One Of My Own Big Dreams by Valerie Young For seven long years I suited up, headed to work at 7 a.m. and rarelygot home much before 7 p.m. It was a routine that bought me a nice house, a new car, and vacations on Cape Cod. But it didn't buy me contentment. Worse, my life - or what was left of it - was totally out of balance. I often spent my 90-mile-a-day commute dreaming about extricating myself from the corporate culture to work for myself. But that's where it ended... with a dream and a sigh. My mother Barbara was on a different course. For her, life was all about gearing up for retirement. She and my Dad had just sold their house up north and bought a place in Florida. She couldn't wait to dive into what she called her "retirement projects" - quilting, making photo albums, organizing 40 years of recipes. But it was not to be. At the too young age of 61, my mother died suddenly of a heart attack, just five months shy of her much-awaited retirement. Losing my mother was a major wake up call. I realized then that life truly is too short and precious to put our dreams on hold for even one more day. It wasn't always easy, but from that day forward I put one foot in front of the other, headed off in the direction of my dream, and never looked back. That was nine years ago. Today I love what I do, I love my sunny home office where I do it, and I feel more blessed every day. When launching the Changing Course newsletter back in 1996 (the Changing Course web site came three years later) I had one goal and one goal only. To help others create a life that I now knew to be possible...  a life where you finally get to experience the deep satisfaction of doing work you love - on your own terms. In other words, to provide you with the resources, insight, inspiration and support to: REPLACE YOUR UNFULFILLING JOB WITH WORK YOU REALLY LOVE