An open letter to those who said I couldn't do it

If you are reading this you probably know exactly what it's like to have people look at you and tell you, "You can't do this." 

Well I just want to say to those people:

I am accomplishing more than I ever thought possible and it's because you didn't believe in me. You telling me I couldn't and wouldn't achieve my goals only made me work harder towards them. You reminding me of my faults, only helped me improve my great work ethic and my determination to prove anyone wrong who told me I couldn't achieve something. I wanted to thank you for all the times that you pointed out my failures, my mistakes, my falls. Of course it hurt, at first, but I wasn’t born to quit.

Thank you for showing me that people in this world are sometimes selfish and cruel no matter how kind you are in return. It helped me evaluate the important things in my life, like how I wanted to make sure I worked with people who lifted each other up not brought each other down.

For so long I tried to figure out what was wrong with me. I changed my ways, I worked harder, but for some reason, I could never please you. Then it dawned on me. There was nothing wrong with me. The problem was with your inability to accept. You were scared. You were scared that somebody would outshine you.  

You focused so hard on shutting out my light, that you didn’t even realize you were dimming yours.

Take a minute to think about it... life is about so much more than yourself, and I whole-heartedly believe that negativity escorts negativity and positivity leads positivity.

You get to choose who you want to be, and I choose to be above all the negative things people have said and done to me.

I choose to be the girl who lets people's negative and hurtful words build me up, not break me down. So, the next time you think about telling someone "You can't do that", remember, anyone can do anything if they set their mind to it.