I
clearly remember the day in the ninth grade that a classmate accosted me in the hallway of my junior high to recruit me for the high school debate team. I thought he was crazy. My heart would beat frantically at the prospect of answering a question in class. I could not talk in front of people—and I made this clear to my classmate. It didn’t matter, he said. The coach was looking for smart kids, he went on, and someone (I am not sure who) had decided I was one of those. My scholarly aptitude seemed irrelevant to me, but he spoke as if the decision had already been made. And it is probably fair to say that this brief conversation changed my life.
To read the original article: How to Become More Resilient | Streams of Consciousness, Scientific American Blog Network
