Kenneth Hill Jr. reflects on wasting energy trying to prove skeptics wrong and how he shifted to self-validation instead. He shares how people make unsolicited comments about his appearance and disability, and why focusing on your own growth makes critics' voices fade.
Many people don't care about the truth, they just want to be right. So I let them be right. I say that because I am constantly encountering people that will tell me what I'm not, and then I hear other people tell other people what they're not. You know, when you hear someone say to another person, oh yeah, one day you'll be amazing. I, I, it's another head-scratcher. It's like, why would you say that and you don't know this person? How do you know they're not already amazing? Because they very well could be. One of the most popular ones for me is, you don't look disabled. And I say, well, you don't look like a physician. But some people get offended by that, and they shouldn't. You know, because I just have that kind of sense of humor. I'd make a joke about life because I enjoy life and I'm grateful for every day. It wouldn't matter if I had, you know, 10 different documents in black and white, 20 people with sworn notarized statements, and a line of people to vouch for Who I am and what I'm doing and what I've done, there's still gonna people. There's still gonna be people that just don't believe you. I mean, that and that's their choice. I used to be someone who felt that I had to prove them wrong. I had to say, "Hey, no, no, it's really this way." But I've learned that I wasted a lot of time doing that. Instead of proving people wrong, I've just proved to myself what I can do because my biggest goals were to set out and just be able to practice martial arts and walk, and I'm— I've done so much more. I hope you're like that because I'm sure that Many of you have felt that there's going to be people that are always against you, and there was a time that they would shut you down, but after a while, their words, you stop hearing them. Do you still hear them? No.
