by Marteen

As kids we are taught how to read, write, and speak properly among other skills.  What happens when you are isolated from your friends because your have an attitude. What happens when you try really hard to understand math, but you just don’t “get it”.   What happens when you are shipped off  to different schools each year for the first five years of your life.  Experiences such as these can make people not trust, be resentful toward society, feel like the deck is always against them.

I can remember my parents being called in to school to discuss my behaviors, of not being able to get along with people, always fighting, always drawing unfriendly attention to myself, yet hurting inside.

As the years go on we see people at parties and see how they are smiling, communicating softly and clearly, nodding and listening to one another.

Life makes people who they are, the last minute “Joe’s” who leave things to the last hour because they know they will always get things done quickly and correctly.

The social butterflies who always walk around with a smile on their face, and appear to know something about everything and can smile when it rains, or snows.

Meetings are a place where people share information, someone takes the lead and of course they want support for their ideas, but what happens if all the meetings you have ever attended have always been to defend yourself.

Scars of the past are not easy to forget; we build gates around us or prefer to be left alone.  We think that if no one gets too close to us they can not hurt us.  This type of attitude is self destructive and they only people who we hurt are ourselves.

People who are successful have lots of friends, everyone loves a winner, a person who does the right thing, says the correct thing, and who is always open to new ideas.  How does this happen?  These people do not take things to heart, learn from their mistakes and understand the value of communication.

Information is the key to learning from other people, talk about common interests,  the weather or even the price of gas can break the ice.  Accept an act of kindness when someone offers to buy you a cup of coffee, it helps to build relationships.  Try to walk around with a smile on your face.  Making yourself smile a few times a day can help to cultivate your personality.  Just as a failure can bring back memories of many past failures an act of kindness can light up your soul.

In life everyone fails.  Bad investments, divorce, loss of a job, car accidents, and the list goes on, but we must learn from these setbacks and push on.  Moving forward can mean trying something new, reflecting on what happened or refinding your skills.  Self awareness, trying new things and surrounding your self with positive people are all beneficial.

They say that smile and people smile with you, cry and you cry alone, it is the responsibilities of adults with LD’s to remove the wall that is self made.  Our actions of today make us who we will be tomorrow.  So let’s get involved in our community whether it is by teaching kids how to hold a baseball bat or kick a soccer ball.  The satisfaction a person received from helping someone else will teach us that we all have something to give.

Sharing is how we grow.