My Mom Told Me I Could Do It!

My mother is quite the amazing woman. She had it tough growing up. Her parents (my grandparents) left her to work in other countries when she was a little girl. She grew up in Shanghai with absent parents in poverty. She told me that on her birthday every  year she would get two hard boiled eggs as a present and she would be so happy. What in the world did she eat for the rest of the year?! When she was 16 her parents brought her over to Hawaii to work as a maid. My grandfather was a cook and my grandmother was also a maid for a wealthy family there. My mom knew that she did not want to live that life and that there was opportunity in America. Her parents pressured her to stay with them to work but she went to college against their wishes. She is now a retired accountant with two beautiful children (yes I’m saying I’m beautiful, deal with it!) and three even more beautiful grandchildren (my brother and I married up). I once said to her “How did you do it? You were so strong to have lived through your childhood. I could never have done it. I probably would have curled up and died.” She responded “No Daniel you would not have died. You would have done it too. When people are faced with adversity and challenges in life they just keep going and eventually get through it.” Her words were so true. I realized that I would have just gone through it if that were my situation. I realized I was much stronger than I thought I was and people in general are much stronger and more capable than they give themselves credit for a lot of the time. It was that moment that I started to realize how I had been holding myself back not because of actual limitations but because I just assumed that I couldn’t. Because I thought that I couldn’t, I didn’t. This might sound silly but I used to think that having my own private practice was a pipe dream. It was a fantasy. But here I am. I achieved what I thought was impossible. I have hence decided to take the limiters off my mind. Do you remember the movie The Matrix? Toward the end of the movie there is a scene when Neo stands up to the agents and someone said “What is he doing?”. Morpheus says “He is beginning to believe.” He then goes on to bend time and space to his will. We are all time and space benders my friends. All you need to do is believe.

For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. Proverbs 23:7