I'm a 34-year-old man, married, live in a nice house, and have a successful career as an educational consultant (顾问). But my life was not always so great. My learning disability made my school days very challenging from an early age. I went to a special school where I got plenty of extra help. Still, I suffered the rest of my school days in public schools.

My life improved greatly when I discovered art. The art world gave me a chance to express myself without words. I went to a workshop and gradually got good at making things with clay (黏土). Here I learned my first important lesson: disabled as I was in language, I could still be smart and well express myself with clay. And my confidence came along. 

I got my next lesson from rock climbing. It was a fun thing but I was scared from the start. I soon noticed it wasn't a talent thing; it was practice. So I did it more. After about five years of climbing, I found myself in Yosemite Valley on a big wall. I learned that if you fall in love with something and do it all the time, you will get better at it.

Later I decided to apply my previous experience to leaning how to read and write. Every day I practiced reading and writing which I used to avoid as much as possible. After two hard years, I was literate (有读写能力).

Having gone through the long process with art, rock climbing, and reading and writing, now I've got to a point in my life where I know I am smart enough to dive into an area that is totally unknown, hard, but interesting.