DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Shy, Awkward Young Girl to “First Lady of the World”

Imagine This: As a young girl, you’re shy, awkward, and have deep-seated feelings of insecurity and inferiority. Even your own relatives consider you homely and don’t expect much of you. So do you give up and relinquish all your dreams?

You’re born in 1884 in New York City, the oldest of three children, and although your family is wealthy, you have an unhappy childhood.

You’re a shy child who feels rejected and neglected by your mother who is embarrassed by your lack of beauty and homely features. She calls you “Granny” even in front of visitors which makes you feel even more ugly and awkward.

Your father is your primary source of affection and comfort, but he’s unreliable and has his own problems. He breaks many of his promises to you, he threatens suicide three times, and he finally has to be hospitalized for his alcohol problem.

Your mother dies when you’re eight and you and your two younger brothers are sent to live with your stern and proper grandmother who is a strict disciplinarian and demands perfection from you. She also teaches you to hide your feelings and to cry only in private.

Your father dies when you’re almost ten and losing both your parents leaves you with a sense of being abandoned and unloved that haunts you for many years.

You create a dream world to compensate for your unhappiness and your feelings of loneliness and insecurity. When you’re fifteen, you’re sent to a boarding school in England where your life changes dramatically.

You’re taught to think for yourself and to look at the world around you in a different way. Social graces and physical beauty are not considered important and, instead, a critical mind and a willingness to help others are emphasized. For the first time in your life, all your fears leave you and your self-confidence begins to soar.

When you return home to your grandmother’s home, however, you again become shy and insecure. The qualities of intelligence and friendliness that were so important at your school, are not valued at home and you once more become awkward and inhibited.

Just before your debutante party at age eighteen, one of your aunts tells you that you’re the “ugly duckling” of the family and will probably never have any boyfriends. This only confirms the feelings of shame and inadequacy you’re already feeling.

Your grandmother refuses to let you go to college, so you decide to compensate for your homely looks and feelings of inferiority by becoming useful to people. You begin to emphasize intellectual achievement and social responsibility.

You marry a distant cousin in 1905 and become an invaluable social adviser to him all his political life. When He’s paralyzed by polio in 1921, you dedicate your life to his purposes and become his eyes and his ears.

When he’s elected President of the United States, you work with him to obtain much-needed educational and social reform during the difficult years of the 1930s.

After your husband’s death in 1945, you’re named a U.S. delegate to the United Nations General Assembly where you serve as chairperson of the UN’s Human Rights Commission from 1947 to 1952.

In 1951, a national poll names you “the greatest living American woman.” When you die at age seventy-eight in 1962 from tuberculosis, you will be remembered as a world leader in the fight for human rights and social reform. Your humanitarian efforts earn you the title of “First Lady of the World.”

“One’s philosophy is best expressed not in words but in the choices one makes in daily living.”

                                                 Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

Excerpted from Dare to Dream!: 25 Extraordinary Lives by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7KEvEqikS0
Giving Back: Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated her entire adult life to helping the underprivileged of all creeds, races, and nationalities.

Did You Know  that Eleanor was President Theodore Roosevlelt’s niece and that he gave her away at her wedding to Franklin Delano Roosevelt?

Something to Think about: How do you think Eleanor’s problems of shyness and insecurity influenced her later dedication to her humanitarian causes?

Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!