My opinion only - your mileage may vary.

Everyone loves to tell you how you "can't" do this, or that. Or how such-and-such is going to be "sooooooooo hard" or you will have to make "a ton of sacrifices to make that work". Ok. Well, maybe that's true. Or maybe that's just YOUR reality. And not mine. The truth is, we can only give opinions on that which we've learned from personal experience or heard about second hand, or read about or watched a TV show on. But none of those experiences are necessarily going to translate into usable material for MY life. And the question remains, are opinions reality? Of course not. They are supposedly-educated guesses.

The opinions of my friends and family mean the world to me. I go to my best friends and close family for their advice and thoughts all the time. A select few people in this world have the ability to shake the ground I thought I stood firm on, with merely one sentence uttered. It's a blessing to have people you value so highly in your life, but it can be a stumbling block in building faith in yourself and your ability to make decisions that flow against the grain. If I have a firm idea in my mind about something I want to do, and someone comes along and says, "You can't do that, and here's why", I should be able to recognize truth but I should also be able to sort out what's merely that person's own reality, seperate and completely different from my own.

My own path has always been one of needing to learn by doing. If I have it in my head that I can do something, I'm going to do it. If I don't do something, it's because I truly recognized an inability in myself, at least at that moment, or I didn't really want what I thought I wanted afterall. When I really want something, I've always made it happen for myself.

My own advice, my opinions are important, no more important than yours or anyone else's. But opinions do not always transfer from one person's life onto another's. Your life and your life's experiences are your own, and mine are mine. Let's remember that as we each walk our own paths.