Small Steps How I Walk
when i share
with people that i have a disability
they’re often shocked what do you mean
you have a disability i can’t see it
well trust me it’s there but this
element of surprise
isn’t just limited to me but how often
do we experience these secret storms
whether it be financially or with our
relationships or with our work or
whatever it may be
yet the people we’re closest to the
people that we walk past on the street
they can’t see it today i want to talk
about those things that we’re battling
that aren’t always known to those around
us
and most importantly i want to talk
about how do we persevere in the face of
such adversity
you see i was born with an ultra rare
genetic skin disease called paconica
congenita
or pc for short and what this means at a
very simple level
is that my skin cells reproduce at such
a rate that my fingernails and toenails
are a little bit thicker than the
average person
i can experience some trouble speaking
my voice can get a little raspy
and it can cause severe calluses and
blisters all over my feet
and now i mentioned that this was an
ultra rare disease and to put a little
perspective on that
there are a little over a thousand
registered patients with pc
in the entire world and in my home state
of maryland there are only five people
that have it
one of which is me and so growing up i
would visit doctor after doctor
and they had never met someone with my
condition and they would always say
you know little guy tell us what the
pain is like and this is how i would
describe it
imagine you’re walking through your
living room and you go crunch on a lego
now if you’ve ever stepped on one of
these pieces of plastic you know the
pain can be excruciating
but for someone with pc that’s what
walking can be like
and so as one might imagine it’s
affected many aspects of my life
but one of the areas i’ve struggled the
most with it was college
because in high school i had these big
dreams of going to this massive
university
you know the big school spirit the
football games i wanted all of that
but in the back of my mind i had this
fear like how was it going to get from
this end of campus all the way to this
end in 15 minutes
i knew it could potentially take a toll
on my feet but despite that
i decided to go to virginia tech and
after i got accepted i was sitting
around the dinner table
with my mom we were talking and and she
asked me this and she was like
are you sure you’re going to be able to
get around campus like are you sure with
your feet and everything and in the most
disrespectful naive
response i crossed my arms and was like
i’ll be i will be fine don’t worry about
me
and i was fine for about the first week
because when i woke up the following
sunday my feet
were burning the toll of walking around
and venturing blacksburg
had finally caught up with me and when i
looked down that morning
my feet were starting to become covered
with blisters
in fact i wanted to share a picture with
you from that sunday just to illustrate
how bad it was because i’m not sure
words can do it justice
and to make matters worse the following
day after icing my feet
my right foot got infected and there was
like a bowling ball coming
it just it was a nightmare and so that
night i sat there i had three pounds of
ice from 7-eleven
i had a bucket to ice my feet and i was
staring at the ceiling
my mind meanwhile is spiraling how is it
going to make it four years
how is it going to make friends how how
how
i sat there lost in some ways i was
angry how could this be this isn’t what
college is supposed to be like
and then i was overwhelmed with this
feeling of hopelessness
and in that moment what i really needed
was some direction
how was i going to make it four years
like this but most importantly
how the heck was i going to make it to
the end of the week and i can tell you
the answer
wasn’t just going to be to tough it out
or to be a man that wasn’t going to help
because this
wasn’t going away so as i sat there
thinking
what i was going to do i i just paused
and said
i’m just going to try and make it to the
end of the semester i’m transferring all
to try and make it to the end of the
semester and to do that i was like i
probably should try and pass my classes
because
that failing out would really only cause
a whole different world of problems
other than what i was dealing with
currently and so that week i made it my
daily goal i was like okay how am i
going to make it to the end of the end
of the semester
and i was like you know what every day
this week i’m gonna make it to class
because if i can make it to class i can
pay attention somewhat and i hopefully
pass and before i know it it’ll be the
end of the semester
and i call these daily goals my small
steps now the power of these small steps
is that no matter what i was
you know experiencing that day what was
happening to me all i knew is that i had
to take
one small step and get my butt to class
and for the first time since that sunday
i had a little bit of control over my
life i had a little bit of direction
on how to climb out of this now i’ve
talked a lot about
direction but why is that so important
well at its core
these small steps every day to go from a
to b that’s that is way too simple
because we all know that life isn’t kind
enough to just let us go from a to b
there will always be that curveball but
i believe the small steps
approaching things in daily goals can
serve as your guide
server’s your blueprint in that turmoil
and here’s what i mean
after about a few weeks of you know my
small steps i was going to class i was
doing my homework
i you know i was doing everything i you
know i thought i could do that day
class things were going great i was
about four weeks into the semester
i had a lot of friends and surely
blacksburg was becoming my new home
well after a particularly hot weekend i
had a flare up with my feet
and i was i was kind of a mess i was
really hobbling around campus
and one night i was studying over at
newman library it was one of those
nights where you’re studying until like
3 a.m
i walk outside and i was like i thought
my bike was right there
they’re like no pat it was right there
it
wasn’t there someone had stolen my bike
i don’t know how someone could do that
but
it was gone and instantly i could feel
this wave of emotions i had in my dorm
room
rushing back oh no you know where my
feet gonna flare up really bad again oh
no how am i gonna get around campus
what am i going to tell my friends but
before i got
too distraught before i got too kind of
out of control i came back to the small
steps
because even though my bike was gone and
i’m still mad about it but even though
it was gone
i knew tomorrow i still needed to get up
and hit my daily goal of
going to class studying for an hour
every day doing all my homework
because i knew if i did those things
even though my circumstances had changed
i would still make it to the end of the
semester so the next day
reset the alarm clock ring hit it off
grab my backpack a couple ibuprofen and
i was off to mcbride
and in about 40 minutes probably the
slowest pace ever to go from one side of
the drill field to the other
i made it now i found a ton of value in
having these daily goals because no
matter what life threw at me
i knew even if i had to make an
adjustment here or there i was still
moving forward and before i knew it i
virtually walked across the stage last
spring to graduate
and even though instagram only saw this
i sure as heck know there was a lot of
hurdles that i had to jump through to
make it there
but i attribute all of those days in
between that moment that picture
to my small steps now the last piece i
want to share with you
about the importance of setting goals is
that
it really can build a positive attitude
in the journey and when i talk about the
journey you know we talk about going
from eight to
whatever your goal is there’s so much
time in the middle and this is what
people sometimes call
the grind right but the grind becomes so
challenging because when we’re in that
thing when we’re doing our daily steps
every single day
we don’t always see progress and the
reason we don’t see progress is because
we become addicted to the end
what do i mean i’ll share it one last
story
and when i was a freshman i think i was
a freshman or sophomore i was trying to
get an internship and i know for people
that have graduated
getting an internship doesn’t seem like
a big deal but for any college student
it’s a really big deal
and so i identified my steps i knew what
it was going to take to eventually get
there
and i was about i think two months in
and it was rejection after rejection
no response after no response and i got
really down
because i viewed the day how the day
went by whether or not i had an
internship
offer and so that formulated into how
about today oh nope failure what about
tomorrow nope failure oh i got a gmail
notification
maybe it’s them oh no that’s another
rejection failure
and then when you get in this kind of
constant failure after failure
we give up and i was i was really close
same thing with new year’s resolutions
we get two weeks in after that initial
motivation kind of comes back
when we don’t see the progress we step
aside
so my grandma my lovely grandma gave me
a call
and it was i think i got that day like
two or three rejections i was really
upset
and she calls and was like how you doing
and i was in the most sour mood and she
could tell instantly
and she’s like what’s wrong with you i
was like well i’m trying my best and
it’s not happening like i don’t know
what to do
and she said something to me that was so
powerful and i’ll never forget it
she was like stop worrying about whether
you’ve got your little internship or not
just figure out and just worry about did
you do today
what you needed to do and if you did
that it’s all you can do
and it changed my whole attitude because
instead of thinking today was a failure
because i wasn’t at the end
i was like you know what today was a big
win because today i did what i said i
needed to do
today i took action today i was one step
closer may not be there yet
but i was on my way and this builds a
little bit of confidence and that
confidence can build momentum
and that momentum builds to commitment
to get to the end it takes you from here
all the way
and so the next time you’re experiencing
something whether it be
hopefully not something like me with
your feet but kind of a problem or you
have this big goal like running a
marathon whatever it may be
just think about the steps you need to
take every day
to get there and now when life
inevitably throws your scales out of
balance
these small steps can give you the
direction on where to go
it will give you the perspective to
focus on today’s accomplishments
not the end today and the motivation
to stay committed along the journey
small steps isn’t about jumping from
highlight real moment to highlight real
moment
rather it’s about judging our days on
whether we planted a seed today for a
better opportunity
tomorrow it’s about giving us direction
even when life throws us a nasty
curveball
and i know to some people you’re like oh
that may be too simple
that’s fine but that’s the beauty of it
because no matter how big the obstacle
or how big the goal
it all begins with one step