From the course: Find Your Passion: How Padma Lakshmi Found Hers

Balancing life and the value of education

From the course: Find Your Passion: How Padma Lakshmi Found Hers

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Balancing life and the value of education

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- It's hard to balance everything. And I've realized that you can have everything, you just may not be able to have it all at once. And that's certainly been true in my life. So every day when I get up, I do try and make a mental list of what I want to get accomplished, what project or what issue that's important to me. Do I want to water? And I try to rank those in the order of importance and make sure I get to the important ones first. And it's not always easy. It's not always in my control. And yes, I am a single mother, but I am not alone in parenting my child, she's parented by her dad as well. And also all of the people in both our circles. I think it's important as we raise children to understand that lots of different people can contribute to that child's evolution, and having multiple generations and people from all walks of life contribute to that child's education is very important. I think it's one of the reasons that I am who I am today because I was also raised by my grandparents in India, I was often taken care of by my aunts and uncles who wanted to help my mom, who was also a single mom. Education is hugely important in Indian culture. And education is the reason that I had all the blessings that I had in my life. If my mother and I had been in the same situation, but my mother hadn't been an educated woman, I think our lives would have been vastly harder, we probably wouldn't have been able to come and make a life in America. And I think education, giving education to a young woman in the world, wherever she is, is giving her an asset for the rest of her life. It's giving her a way to be on her feet. And that's why I've been working with the UN in making sure that we all have equal opportunity for education because there many things in this life that can be taken away from you, but your own education is once it's gained, it's yours. No one can take it away.

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