I feel sad for people who have never been told they are anything extraordinary.
How do you know you can’t do something amazing if you never try?
Small towns in Florida to small towns in North Dakota are full of people like Sam and Angie in the game, Forgotten Trail. They’ve known everyone in town their whole life and everyone knows all about Sam and Angie – or so they think.
It’s certainly not required to be born and raised in a small town to feel that you aren’t extraordinary – but it helps.
When people know your history – your parents, your small failures, like Sam not being able to learn division in second grade – they think they know you. It’s easy to get pegged as “Dumb as an Ox”, “Nothing Really to Write Home About”.
When everyone around you puts you in a box, it’s hard to find your way out.
As we worked on Forgotten Trail, images of students I knew over the years kept coming to mind.
Why did you select nursing as a major? Why not pre-med?
Oh, I couldn’t do that.
Why not? You have a 4.0 GPA. You did great in Chemistry. Believe me,when I had to pack dressings in my husband’s open wounds from surgery, I developed all the respect in the world for nurses. It’s fine if that’s what you want, but do you think you should give some thought to the possibilities? You could be almost anything. A physician. A physical therapist. An architect. An astronaut.
Blank stare.
I’m not saying that no one should be a teacher or nurse or live in Moose Lake, Manitoba (although I hear it is really cold up there). What pains me is people who don’t understand, as Willie Davis said, …their future is determined by their own abilities and NOT by other people’s expectations.
———
You can get Forgotten Trail here for an introductory price of $5
