I’m starting out today expecting success. From now on I am always going to expect success. I’ve already prepared myself for the worst, which is necessary in this world today. But preparing for trouble is not the same as expecting it. When it’s summer and there are fierce storms that can knock out power, you make sure you have water and food and batteries and lights and fans and a radio. For winter storms, you substitute extra blankets for the fans.
You have health insurance because bodies need help now and then. You have home and car insurance because you can’t control the weather or other people. You have money in the bank because the economy fluctuates and–again–you can’t control other people.
But there’s a difference between being pragmatic and prepared and being terrified and paralyzed. There were times when I was terrified and almost paralyzed about my body, but my relentless determination and insane optimism always pulled me through. And, as I kept telling myself, once I made myself well, everything else would be easy.
And I’m just about well now. It was a lot harder and took a longer than I expected, but I never gave up. So why should I give up on expecting success? I’ve planted a lot of seeds. I was the first one to write about childhood-onset autism, which begins after a child starts eating solid food and is therefore not the same as genetic autism. The autism that is currently plaguing children and their families is caused by the same allergy to chemicals in food that causes ADD, only its symptoms are far more devastating.
And from what I’ve seen, nobody else has made that connection. Nutritionists and holistic doctors are finding that the autistic symptoms disappear when children eat clean food, but so far that evidence is still anecdotal and no one else has put the pieces together. So why shouldn’t I get credit one day for my discovery?
I’ve been talking and writing about hunger and homelessness and about the imperative to take care of our own. So why shouldn’t I expect others to start feeling the same way so we can work together within our capabilities to pull America back together? (For this I neither want nor expect any credit, especially since others have been doing so much more than I have to help people.)
Why shouldn’t I expect people to show me the same courtesy and friendliness I show them? Why shouldn’t I expect my currently slimy bank to pay attention to my comments and clean up its act? (It’s no slimier than the others, which is why I haven’t switched, and it does have a powerfully secure website.) Why shouldn’t I expect to have an impact on the world if I continue to work at it?
As individuals, each of us can make a difference. I learned that when I was teaching, because the more I expected of my students, especially the “low-level” ones, the more they produced. I made a difference for them and they made a difference for me and together we created a victorious circle of success.
I will no longer allow anyone to say “No” to me about what I truly care about. Forget about being realistic! It’s one thing to be pragmatic and take of ourselves, but it’s another thing entirely to be waylaid and trapped by someone else’s narrow vision.
Oh, no. From this day forward I will wake up every morning expecting to succeed and I will go to sleep every night counting my successes. The small ones, though less showy, are at least as important as the big ones, because they create the energy that will sustain us through the dry, tough times.
I willed myself back to life, and now I’m willing myself forward into success after success after success.
Yee-hah!
