A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.
David Brinkley Since I have gotten older, I have realized that most kids in middle and high school feel like they are picked on, that they are ugly, that no one understands them.
I was just another of those kids.
I was given a yucky nickname in the fourth grade-Beetle Bug.
This was way before the Beatles.
Kids used to hit me with books and then slide the book over the body of another classmate and say, "You've got IT.
" I had few friends, I thought of myself as ugly, stupid and worthless.
In other words I was a typical teen.
I've heard the same sorts of stories from other adults.
I watched my kids and their friends go through the same.
I've seen it on television and movies.
I believe it is true that most kids have the same sorts of problems and worries.
But I have watched what becomes of these adults.
Some of them stay losers their entire lives.
It's like they have a high school mindset and they have never outgrown it.
Others seem to rise about those feelings and become successful adults.
Some write about those times, others go to psychiatrists, and yet others just say that was then and it's over.
These people seem to become exceptionally strong individuals.
They grew because of the negative experiences.
They learned to sense their own self-worth despite those questions they had about their worth.
They aren't conceited because they learned humility through their experiences, but they aren't shattered.
I think their high school experiences, as horrible as anyone else's, have made them strong.
It's like David Brinkley said, they have laid a firm foundation on the bricks their peers threw at them.