Life Lessons from the Little Red Wagon: 15 Ways to Take Charge and Create a Path to Success by Ronald E. Simmons

Author:Ronald E. Simmons [Simmons, Ronald E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

Changing the Definition of Victory

I’ve always been an independent person from the time I was a little guy growing up in Junction City. Maybe it’s the middle child in me, but that’s the way I’m made. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been goal-oriented. No matter what you do, if you work hard enough, you can accomplish it.

One of the things I learned with Daniel is, just because you want something and just because you’re willing to do the work for it, it doesn’t mean that’s what’s going to happen—especially in the timing you want it to happen. I grew up on the border of Arkansas and Louisiana, but we lived on the Louisiana side by the time I was a teenager, and in Louisiana, you could get your driver’s license at age fifteen (instead of sixteen as in many states). I’m sure my mom and dad were scared to death, but it was the natural thing to do, and they let me do it. I’ve been driving ever since. Daniel is no different than you or me in a lot of ways. As a young man, he wanted to learn to drive. He saw his mother driving, his dad driving, and his brother driving, so it was a natural progression. In his mind, that’s what he should do too. Daniel did a lot of things people had told us he couldn’t. He learned to ride a bike, he started rollerblading, he graduated high school. Driving wasn’t even an option when Daniel was sixteen because he was still having seizures and, even in his mind, he probably wasn’t ready. But in his early twenties Daniel came to us and said he wanted to learn to drive. It scared Lisa and me to death in light of Daniel’s autism and spatial-recognition issues, but we started looking at options. If we could figure it out, we weren’t going to deny Daniel the opportunity. We helped Daniel with parent-taught driver’s ed online, and he passed the written test. Lisa and I were too nervous to teach him on the road. We found a class at St. David’s Hospitality in Austin. I still remember Daniel calling one day to tell us he had driven on the highway. It was an equally terrifying and proud moment to see how far Daniel had come since we were told he wouldn’t even ride a bike. We hired a friend, Aaron, to give Daniel driving lessons. He’d take Daniel to a big church parking lot to practice. Finally, he thought Daniel was ready for the test. They went to the DMV, but Daniel took the test and failed. Daniel was still determined. About a month later, Lisa took Daniel to try again. As he pulled out of the parking lot, Daniel hit the curb. The car turned around instead of exiting the parking lot. Daniel failed a second time.

We had always instilled in our children to set goals. Daniel’s goal from the beginning was to get his driver’s license while he was still twenty-five.

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