Life can take us down unexpected and scary roads. Sometimes, we don’t know how to get off those roads and begin the climb to a better future. As this mom proved, however, anything is possible with a second chance and a little determination.
A Former Inmate
Woman goes from inmate to Princeton intern.
Photo by Nick Fewings on UnsplashMary McCrary is a 40-year-old mother of three who spent three years in prison. According to Good Morning America, she served time at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville for a parole violation following a conviction for aggravated burglary.
McCrary dropped out of high school in Grade 10 and has since successfully pursued her GED, but it wasn’t until prison that she began thinking about further education. She hit a breaking point behind bars and decided it was time to turn her life around.
“When you get to a point where you're tired and don’t even want to live and you're hopeless and you feel useless and worthless, you have a decision to make,” she told the publication.
“I made the decision to use this time to do something different, to change my life, because I didn’t want to keep doing the same things and getting in trouble and ... doing whatever I had to to survive because it gets you in the exact same place.”
So, McCrary enrolled in a coding class as part of the center’s Persevere program, an initiative aimed at helping inmates earn certifications as front-end or full-stack web developers.
“The class alone made you feel like you’re a human being, that I was working towards something, that there is a goal in sight, I am going to accomplish something, and I did,” she added. “That does give you confidence and hope.”
A Life-Changing Opportunity
For the next six months, McCrary earned her certificate in front-end coding. She decided to develop her skills even more by enrolling at Nashville State Community College, which offers a program for inmates.
This past May, McCrary was granted parole, completed her supervision, and earned extra credits toward an associate’s degree. But not even she could anticipate what would happen next: an internship at Princeton.
The nine-week program is meant for formerly incarcerated undergrad students to gain experience and new opportunities, and so far, McCrary is excelling.
“Her dedication to building her future is evident in how she does not shy away from challenges and the unknown,” Bridgett vonHoldt, an associate professor at Princeton and the head of the internship program said. “She is a role model, demonstrating for anyone who thinks such change is impossible that nothing is impossible.”
As for McCrary, she knows this is an incredible opportunity and hopes the internship is the next step toward earning her AA degree back in Nashville.
“This has been life-changing in more ways than one. This is an unbelievable, sometimes overwhelming experience,” she said. “If you look at my past, it's a crazy shamble mess, but look now, look what can happen. Nothing is ever impossible.”
Second Chances
McCrary hopes to be a role model for those who are having a hard time accepting the idea of a brighter future and so far, she certainly is. She’s a great example of how things can get better and you can change your future when you’re willing to take advantage of the opportunities you have — even if they don’t seem like opportunities at the time.
This story is also a needed reminder that everyone deserves a second chance in life and that sometimes, by allowing someone who has messed up the chance to try again, they may surprise you.
No one is perfect, and everyone stumbles. It’s not how hard we fall that truly matters in life; it's how we pick ourselves back up. But it’s also up to us whether we want to be the person who lends someone on the ground a helping hand or if we want to be the guy who just keeps on walking.
You'll Find Happiness When You Stop Trying to Find Yourself
You find yourself curious yet defiant towards this idea: that our quest to "find ourselves" is what's actually causing us to be unhappy. How can trying to figure out who we are be a cause for discontent? A lot of us have felt or been led to believe that we need to define ourselves, to figure out who we are and what we want, in order to discover what makes us happy.
But what if the truth is much simpler than that?
You'll Find Happiness When You Stop Trying to Find Yourself
We are living in an age where the definition of success is again changing. Being successful once meant getting rich, or bagging that coveted position in the corporate ladder. It still does for many. But the millennial generation is more likely to judge success by their ability to turn their passion into a source of income, by how many stamps they have collected on their passport, or by how many followers they have accrued on Twitter or Instagram.
So what is success, really? I will not answer that for you, because who decides which definition is the right one? Your idea of success could be entirely different from mine. So why should one be better than the other? Why compare at all?
What if I told you the same logic can be applied to happiness? The things that make you happy might not do the same for me. But shouldn't it stand to reason then than finding ourselves will help us better understand what makes us happy?
To live is to change
Before I answer that question, I want you to ask yourself, do you still like playing hide and seek, like you did as a kid? Or do you prefer playing on your PS5 or going clubbing now? You might have loved chocolate cake a couple of months ago, but maybe cheesecake makes your mouth water today. You never were an animal person, but perhaps suddenly, you find yourself secretly enjoying watching dog or cat videos on YouTube.
By now, you have probably picked up on the common thread -- your preferences have changed. We are constantly changing. Different periods, life experiences, people and places will constantly mold us into something new. We are always evolving.
So what use is it to seek to "find" ourselves, when the moment we feel we know who we are or what makes us tick -- BOOM -- we have changed some more? You will never find a fixed answer to who you are, because the answer is never fixed. And because you will never really find a stable answer, the question will keep gnawing at you, leaving you feeling incomplete and discontent. You will feel like a failure, for not being competent enough to even answer the most basic question: 'Who am I'?
Sit back and enjoy the music
How do you feel when a song is stuck in your head and you just can't recall the lyrics or the singer? Annoyed maybe? Even very annoyed? It's a powerful analogy, isn't it?
The moment you realize and accept that there is no fixed answer to who you are, you will learn to love yourself as is -- to simply enjoy the song, without needing to name the singer. The moment you learn to let go is is the moment you will feel at peace, because you will no longer be 'chasing' anything. You will simply be.
You are your thoughts. So let your thoughts embrace the chaos of flux and the constant myriad of changes. Accept yourself in every moment. Define your terms for your personal success and happiness. But don't stop there. Keep redefining those terms.
And finally, you will realize that you're no longer chasing something that always seems just slightly out of reach, but instead walking alongside change as a happy life companion.