Believe In You

I need to tell you a bit more about my story. Honesty is important, but difficult for me. I think honesty is difficult for everyone - it really helps to be more open.

When I was in elementary school, I was in Special Education until 5th grade. I was largely written off as not being bright enough to do much with my life. It was a rural school with 80 kids from K-8. Don't get me wrong, I remember that elementary school was fun, but I don't remember having a lot of resources to deal with any learning disabilities.

My parents are absolutely amazing, and I am so proud of them, but neither of them had a high school education. Being a Polish immigrant and living in a rural Canadian community, I guess most people like my Dad would not really 'get' higher education. I honestly don't remember reading much growing up. It was just not a thing we did.

I suspect that my parents, family, and teachers did not think that I would have had much of a career. Here I am now a tenured professor. Not just a professor, but at one of the top educational institutions in the world.

Why am I telling you this? This post is simply let you know that you should never give up on yourself.

I know that things can get crappy. It does for everyone. I still get many days where I don't believe in myself. There are many days where I wanted to give up on the R3ciprocity Project. But, you have to keep going and keep pushing forward. You have to believe that you can do this. Things do come together if you keep pushing!

People are going to tell you crap in which they believe they are helping you, but you can't listen to them. You have to listen to what you believe in. You have to keep going!

You are capable of some pretty amazing things if you keep persisting at something.