What Have You Sacrificed in Your Cause?

For our weekly Sacred Writing exercise, my friend Sonia posed the question: What have you sacrificed for your cause?

My cause has been getting a good education, mostly so I can provide a financially stable life for my kids. But the irony of my cause is that seeking this education has kept me from spending a lot of time with them. Dr. Margaret Barber once told me that you never have free time in grad school because you spend every waking moment studying. And this, in my experience, is true. While my kids watch movies like "The Diary of a Wimpy Kid" or play baseball in the yard, I'm engrossed in largely torturous reading. When I'm writing papers and they come to visit me, I have to tell them to leave because they're distracting me. Even after the car accident, I couldn't nurture them like I probably should have because I had to jump right back into my homework. So essentially I'm sacrificing my kids for my kids. Strange...