Don't Tell Me I Can't Do It! by Erica Miller

Author:Erica Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: urn:ean:9781937110734
Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group
Published: 2015-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

As a young woman in Tel Aviv, I distinguished myself from my peers by stubbornly refusing to settle down. Although my parents cut my studies at the agricultural school short, my desire for a good education remained as strong as ever. I think I must have inherited my intense interest in academia and the pursuit of knowledge from my father’s side. It’s one of the traits I cherish the most from my ancestral heritage. Most young people of that era in Israel, boys and girls alike, weren’t particularly compelled to seek a high school diploma. None of my friends opted to go to high school, and that was the norm. Work was valued; education was not.

I wanted both.

Since money was scarce, I would have no choice but to work my way through high school. Ambitious and highly motivated, I managed to hold down two separate jobs while attending school at night. From 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., I worked on an assembly line in a cardboard box factory, where I was evaluated on my speed and efficiency assembling cartons. I was never very popular with my coworkers there because I inadvertently raised the bar for everyone. We were supposed to turn out twenty boxes per hour, but I had little trouble doubling that figure. I still remember my coworkers’ resentful looks. I didn’t care. I was only interested in doing my best.

Between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m., I worked as a receptionist in a music school. I was in class from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m., and then I would usually study until well after midnight, sometimes as late as 2:00 a.m. (Studying in a language other than my mother tongue was quite a challenge, after all.) I was a very busy girl. Work and school consumed my life for three years, which meant that I had practically no social life, but I was also the only one among my peers who earned a high school diploma. Shortly afterward, I enlisted in the Israeli Air Force and spent two amazing years in service to my homeland. It was an empowering experience, one that has remained with me for a lifetime.

Boys weren’t important to me. Achievement, focus, proving that I was smart—that’s what motivated me then and still motivates me now. I resisted the lure of romance during my military service, and even after I left the Air Force, I remained the only one in my circle of friends who wasn’t part of a couple. I went out for a while with this one particular guy, but now I don’t even remember his name. I do remember that everyone around me expected us to get married, and I suppose I probably would have married him eventually, but I wanted to give myself one more chance to be unique, to be independent. I wanted one more chance to experience the world “according to Erica.”

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