I thought it was a fairly good day yesterday, youngest was offered paid weekend work at his work placement and his provisional driving licence came through (although I probably shouldn’t celebrate that fact to soon, it’s going to cost me money). He’s wanted to learn to drive for so long. He’s been driving tractors and the Landover on the farm by us for the past two years. Ideally he would have loved to work on a farm but those days are long gone, the jobs just don’t exist any more. The work placement with the Nursery / Landscape Company was the next best thing. He wanted outside work; the poring rain and freezing cold have never bothered him.

But today has surpassed yesterday in the happiness stakes – the company has rung back and changed the offer to full time employment. We’re all over the moon. Youngest isn’t what you’d call an overly confident person and quite reserved with people he doesn’t know very well. The placement was ideal for him and over a period of weeks I’ve watched him change and come out of himself. I’m extremely lucky in the fact that both of my children found employment relatively quickly but in fairness to them, both have good work ethics. Neither thinks the world owes them a living and both got offered jobs from work experience placements.

Oldest worked at McDonalds while still at school and continued to work the late shift whilst on his work experience placement. Sometimes he was working 14 hour days which used to worry me. He just saw it as a means to an end, which I’m pleased to say, paid off. He needed money to run his car but he also recognised that if he stood any chance of get into mechanics he would need experience. His attitude is one of the reasons he can afford to live independently with his girlfriend whilst his friends are still living at home.

I think everyone wants their children to do well and I’m no different, but more importantly than that I want them to be happy. I know what it feels like to have to make yourself go to work somewhere really don’t want to be, with people you really don’t want to work with. No amount of money is worth that.

You spend so much of your life at work it’s important that you’re happy there and although you’ve obviously got to earn enough to pay the bills and have enough left to enjoy life it’s important that you recognise just what is important. As I was reminded by someone the other day, life isn’t a rehearsal and happiness doesn’t have to cost a lot.

It’s easy in this day and age to forget just what is important and it doesn’t hurt every now and again to think about what really matters to you – surprisingly enough, a new car or two weeks in the sun come further down the list than you first may have thought.