Life is a journey that is meant to be travelled in one direction - straight ahead.
Shortly after graduating high school I became a single mother; earlier that year my father passed away suddenly from pancreatic cancer. Experiencing two major life events in one year filled me with many emotions, but I knew that I had more years ahead of me and this particular year was not going to define me. I knew that I had to be more than "a statistic." You can say that I have always been an tough minded optimist even before I knew what it meant.
After I had my son at 18 I was determined. I did what I knew I had to do: work and go to school. I recruited many people into my village to help raise my son while I was building the foundation for our future. I utilized the resources available to me to help ease my burden and make life a little closer to normal, participating in government programs like WIC, Food Stamps and Medicaid. I did not view the assistance with a veil of shame because I knew that my future was bright. June 2009 I graduated with honors from Texas Southern University with a degree in Business Administration. Although the country was in a recession I was blessed with a wonderful, fulfilling job offer at a Fortune 500 company.
Life happens and it doesn't matter how terrible the situation may seem at the moment, we choose how we respond. We choose how we own it. We choose how we move forward from it. Others will try to define it for us but we ultimately have the power. We are not designed to just be, we are designed to be great.
Ashley René Casey
After I had my son at 18 I was determined. I did what I knew I had to do: work and go to school. I recruited many people into my village to help raise my son while I was building the foundation for our future. I utilized the resources available to me to help ease my burden and make life a little closer to normal, participating in government programs like WIC, Food Stamps and Medicaid. I did not view the assistance with a veil of shame because I knew that my future was bright. June 2009 I graduated with honors from Texas Southern University with a degree in Business Administration. Although the country was in a recession I was blessed with a wonderful, fulfilling job offer at a Fortune 500 company.
Life happens and it doesn't matter how terrible the situation may seem at the moment, we choose how we respond. We choose how we own it. We choose how we move forward from it. Others will try to define it for us but we ultimately have the power. We are not designed to just be, we are designed to be great.
Ashley René Casey
