I knew I wanted to be an artist and that I wanted to teach art in college. I knew I wanted to find a wife and start a family. I knew I wanted to be active in my community. But I didn't know how I would achieve my most ambitious goals. Recognizing that life's journey is a marathon and not a sprint will help make achieving your goals more manageable. To become a professor I would need a Master's degree in Fine Arts; to get an MFA, I would need to go to graduate school; in order to get into graduate school, I would need to make art, strengthen my portfolio, and build my resume; to have the time and money to do this, I would need a day job that doesn't destroy my creative energy and that pays well enough to allow me to make art. So I took a job, made art at nights and weekends, entered art competitions, put on exhibitions with friends, built up my portfolio, applied to graduate school, got my MFA , I took every adjunct teaching job I could find, I worked in a gallery, I made art, I exhibited, until I finally got a full-time teaching job and realized my goal of becoming a working artist and