Perseverance

Perseverance is a quality that I admire in people. It is that quality that makes a person keep trying when no one thinks they will be successful.   Perseverance drives people to succeed when everything and everyone seems to be against them. They somehow find the strength to continue to try. I don’t think perseverance is a quality that people are born with. I think that it is learned and practiced. It is developed and rehearsed with each seemingly impossible situation. 

Dyslexia has taught me all about perseverance.  I would like to tell you that it was an easy lesson and that it wasn’t painful but that just wouldn’t be true. You see, it seems like everything comes hard for me. I have to work harder and longer than my friends to do homework and study for tests. I work for hours on homework every night and also on the weekends. Most people don’t know that about me because dyslexia isn’t something you can see and most teachers haven’t been trained to look for it. In fact, when I was in second grade, I had a teacher that kept telling me that I wasn’t trying hard enough.  She couldn’t see that I was working as hard as I could. Second grade was a painful experience.  Although I wanted to give up, I continued to work hard. There are many very successful dyslexics that attribute their success to their dyslexia. Their dyslexia taught them how to get back up after failing and it taught them all about perseverance.

 Charles Schwab is someone that I admire for his perseverance. From a young age, learning was difficult for Schwab. He didn’t know that he was dyslexic. In fact, most of his teachers just thought that he was slow. In college, he failed both English and French. He learned to never give up. Schwab sees his disability as a blessing because it has allowed him to see the world differently. He explains, “There were people who were a lot brighter than I was, or at least seemed to be, because they got much higher marks. But I could see the bigger picture, whereas they could see what was right in front of them.”  Charles Schwab went on to become the founder of the biggest, most successful discount brokerage firm in the industry. 

I will try to remember the importance of perseverance as my dyslexia teaches me how to keep working and trying my best. It is with perseverance that I will get back up after failing and continue to strive to become the person that God wants me to be.

Different

Some people may find that writing out their thoughts is difficult, and for some, it is very difficult, but I actually find that writing is painful. I seem to have lots of ideas but it is hard for me to get them down on paper. Many of my ideas are really great ideas but when I write them, they seem so simple. I am sure that many of my friends were able to sit down and write their blog post in a matter of an hour, but for me, I spent hours trying to write and rewrite my blog posts. When I was younger, I didn’t really understand how I could have really great ideas but it would take me so much longer than everyone else to write my paper. Now I know that it’s because I’m dyslexic.

Dyslexics struggle with written expression. It is much easier for me to write about a famous person, or a period of history, but it is painful to express my thoughts on paper. When I have to write a paper, I have to first draw out my thoughts. I set it up like a web and boy is it messy. This allows me to organize what I’m going to say. Then I use Dragon Naturally Speaking and start talking to write out my thoughts. Dragon is a voice recognition software that allows you to speak while the computer types. Dragon is a lifesaver for me! I usually end up with 900 words for a 300 word post. This is because like most dyslexics, I have lots of great ideas. I then read through the post and end up shrinking it down to about 250 words. I keep reading and rereading the post and add more thoughts. I have to read it out loud so that I can really hear what it sounds like. I also have someone else read it and make comments and edits. As you can see, this difficulty makes me different. Dyslexia makes me different than my friends but I’m ok with different. I’ve actually learned to like different.