You’ll never amount to anything. Can’t you do anything right? Dream all you want, you won’t get there from here. What can you do, you’re a cripple? You’re just taking up space.

When we open our mouths, the most intelligent stuff doesn’t always come out of it. I’ve heard all of the sentences above directed at me. I’ve also heard others use some of those sentences to make others feel as small as a dust ball.

I’m about to quote my mom, your mom might have said the same thing, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Thanks mom.

It’s hard just living. It’s more challenging living with a disability. Add on verbal abuse, and you probably wonder why I can still keep a positive attitude. Actually, some days I ask myself the same question. Here’s some more food for thought.

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. He also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.

Abraham Lincoln ran for public office seven times and was defeated every time before becoming president of the United States.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.

When Lucille Ball began studying to become an actress in 1927, she was told by the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School, “Try another profession. Any other.”

We can listen to others and let them dictate what we do in life, or we can excel. Only you know your own potential. When you’re at school or at work, do you just do what’s required or do you go beyond?

I think one of the saddest things that happens in households across the world is when a parent tells their own children that they are worthless. Can’t believe this? I’ve heard parents tell this to their kids in front of me.

My only thought is that their parents must have said this to them. We need to break this cycle of put downs.

Helen Keller once said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.”

If you think you got it bad, someone else has it worse, guaranteed! It’s not my disability that defines who I am, it’s my personality and perseverance that help me live my life.

So you still don’t feel very positive? First off, there is one person that needs convincing first: yourself. If you don’t think you can achieve something, then you can’t. If you don’t think yourself worthy, than your not. If you can’t love yourself, than why should others?

It’s those individuals who don’t love themselves that are the first to pick on others. They think if their life isn’t that good, why should someone else’s life be better.

Well, let me be the first to say, “You can do it!” I have confidence in you.

“To thine own self be true.” - William Shakespeare

A friend has earned your love, appreciation and respect by being just who they are. Something greater is to know that we deserve these things from the people in our lives.

This is the first step on the road to being a positive, loving person. Someone your own kids can look up to. This is also the hardest. Are you up to loving yourself?

Paul Harvey has said, “You can tell when you are on the road to success. It’s uphill all the way.”