“You gain the strength, experience, and confidence by every experience where you really stop to look fear in the face… You must do the thing you think you cannot do”
Someone asked me the other day about my history. It was funny, because the only thing I remembered at that moment, (that I truly felt when answering), was when I got a 150,000 volt shock, (low current and on one side of my body, which is why I am still here…). But this experience occurred within the context of being given the opportunity to build, to create, to learn, about all aspects of technology, by a man who saw so deeply into how things worked, his words were only pointers. He knew this. And he let me participate, even though I was a girl. And he told me, directly, he had little faith in my capacity because I was a girl. I accepted this, as I knew he felt this way. But he shared with me his insights. And I have never forgotten him for his trust. I knew he could not think differently about my gender at first. And I worked in his lab for 6 years. When I would walk home, across the bridge towards the loop in Chicago, after working 3 jobs, to survive, and then complete my work at the lab, I felt completely at home. They say, when you feel at home, it is a reminder of who you really are, and that if you can get back to that place, that feeling, you will know you are doing the right thing.
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