Everyday living gets in the way of life...

You lie in bed at night and think of all the great things that you want to do with your life. You get excited, and when you wake up, you are ready to take on the anything that comes your way with the notion that you will start working on the list of items that you really want to do with your life. Your feet hit the floor and you are ready.

You jump in the shower only to find out that the hot water heater went out overnight. A cold shower will wake anyone up. As you get breakfast ready, you find you are out of milk, so now you have to go through a drive-thru before you drop the kids off to school.

As you hurry a cup of coffee down your throat, you look at your phone and have a text to get into the office ASAP, big problems. You scurry to get ready and one of your beloved children remembers that they need a box of large matchsticks for a school project - today - and they all have to be lit and then placed back in the box.

You put on your SuperParent cape, metaphorically speaking, and you get it done. You get the kids dressed and out the door. You go through the drive-thru and run into the Supermarket to get the big box of matches. There you sit in the car, with the windows cracked and you light 500 matchsticks and blow them out through the window. You realize that you must look like Cheech and Chong with all the smoke coming from the car.

Your idea to save the world, write a book, invent a new product to make millions, and work on your dream job have all gone by the way side. You just want this morning over with and it is only 8:00 a.m. 

I call this condition "Everyday living gets in the way of life.” All the things that we have to do on a daily basis - work, clean, cook, shop, taking care of your loved ones - can take over our lives and keep us from doing some things in life that we really want to do - our big life goals!

We need to reverse the order here. Let’s call this condition "Our dream way of life gets in the way of everyday living" but how do we do this? A few things come to mind like winning the lottery, hiring a nanny, a maid, a chef, or just quit doing the daily things altogether. Well, the chances of most people doing these things may be slim, but there has to be a way, right? Everyday living is going to continue. We all know it. It cannot be denied. 

Yes, it will continue, just as it has for others who are somehow able to fulfill their life’s dreams, like Oprah Winfrey, Nelson Mandela, Ghandi, or Meryl Streep. So what is their secret?

I believe there is a common denominator. It is the belief that you are going to do it – somehow or some way. You don't know how or when, but you keep that dream, that goal, in your mind and you envision it every day. You make notes and you begin to have some clarity in your mind. Don't be too specific about how it will look because that can hold you back. Things often don’t turn out exactly as we’ve envisioned them to be. We need to have open minds and be open to change. Sometimes what actually transpires is even better.
All the best, always!
Sm​iles, 

Jackie
President & Founder

Storytelling Helps Us Advocate and Connect

At Help Your Hero, one of the things we advocate for is storytelling, and we do this for several reasons:

• It's fun to share and connect with others through stories.
• It's a way to escape the sometimes painful realities of daily life.
• It's a way for us to learn through the experiences of everyone around us, and as we all know, everyone has a story to tell.

More and more, people are choosing to share their stories online via blogs and social media platforms, and since October is National Down Syndrome Awareness Month, we'd like to share with you another option we found recently: My Great Story on the National Down Syndrome Society's website. 

My Great Story enables people to submit and read stories. They are categorized by theme and there is even a search feature to help you find more specific stories. Submitting stories is an easy process and each story is limited to 500 words. Something else that's great...they choose stories each week and month to promote as the Great Stories for that week or that month!

According to the NDSS, the "My Great Story campaign is the largest NDSS public awareness initiative. The goal of the campaign is to ignite a new way of thinking about people with Down syndrome by sharing stories written by and about them. All are welcome to participate in the campaign, by sharing a story or voting and commenting on the stories already in the collection. There over 600 stories written by self-advocates, their family members, friends, teachers, coworkers, coaches and anyone else who has a positive story to share about someone with Down syndrome."

So if you have a story to share, why not share it today?

Best,
T. Bartlett
PR Manager & Story Writer