Growing up in a family where my parents are displaced refugees to the United States from a third world country, sure does have its up and plenty of downs. My parents didn’t have running water and no electricity in the country where they came from. Most persons never really had an education where they attended school as well as having already help out on the family farm. My mother watched her parents get killed when she was a little girl when a military plane was dropping bombs onto various buildings and shacked homes during the early stages of the Vietnam War in hopes to rid of the communist only to make a bunch of innocent children orphans instead. My father who was the oldest child in his family, was mistreated by his mother since he had a severe and obvious case of polio causing him to be very short in height when fully grown. So what does the title to this have to do with being resourceful?

I was always mistreated as a youth, from family members and schoolmates since I was an outsider from moving around so much (highly mistaken for being a military brat). Some school districts I was in were better than others. But what my parents never could figure out is that I had a learning disability, a matter I wasn’t diagnosed until I was twenty-four but always was aware of what I had. Due to receiving so much ridicule and insults, I taught myself somethings, well, a WHOLE lot! I wasn’t skinny looking, couldn’t pass a written test even if I studied for a week straight, was poor, and frequently disregarded and ignored by family members.

No one actually taught me directly how to do anything and get anything done. I self-taught myself on my own pace since no one bothered to teach me anything since they always saw me as a failure instead. Over time, I learned to be resourceful to others even though most of what I had been engaging with didn’t apply to me at the time. I’ve had my ups and downs in life, but over the years in a short amount of my time, I learned that my knowledge about so much has been of some advantage in the unlikely situations. So when people insult you, calling you a loser and a failure, remember to learn as much as you can to be more helpful than helpless as they’ve been expecting.

I started learning engineering while in high school. I began writing stories by hand while in elementary school. I was able to read by the time I was in preschool. I was declared to be lazy as a small child by my mother when in fact, I was sickly causing me to be physically weak all the time. From all that I faced from an early age, I have proved more than what most people have ever expected of me. It wasn’t easy at first just like anything, but over time, everything became much easier and my brain became a sponge. I became physically and intellectually strong. My coordination is still imperfect, but to people unfamiliar with their current surroundings, they’ll never know of my handicap.

We can never learn enough. We can never do enough. We can never get to know so much. We can teach ourselves that we never knew when all along we knew how and when to do something that is generally minimal to the average person. I never know when I can come in handy to any person and in any situation.