The New Year is here and has brought forth the spring trimester for Life Development Institute.  As we welcome new and returning students, we take a moment to reflect upon the greatness and wonder that comes with education.  It has been said that “giving a man a fish will enable him to eat, but teaching him to fish will have him eat forever.”  As in this parable, so is life and learning to live.  Doing actions required for independent living on behalf of someone makes them successful in that moment.  Teaching them to complete these steps on their own empowers them with success beyond that moment.

Transitioning to independent living is hard for young adults, as can be seen with the increasing quantity of “basement children.”  Further, persons with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), ADHD, and other learning disabilities face this same dilemma along with differences that can exponentially create further difficulties in “launching” to self-reliant living.  Therefore, as we start this next year and this trimester, we are wise to remember the guidance of those who have gone before us, which is found in the words below:

“I am only one; but still am one. I cannot do everything, but still can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.” – Helen Keller

“What one does is what counts and not what one had the intention of doing.” – Pablo Picasso

“The most effective way to do it, is to do it.” – Amelia Earhart

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” – Robert Frost

“I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.” – Plato

“By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.” – Christopher Columbus

“An educated man should know everything about something, and something about everything.” – C.V. Wedgwood

“We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face…we must do that which we think we cannot.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.” – George Elliot

“A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with—a man is what he makes himself.” – Alexander Graham Bell