“Life takes on the meaning that you give it.”
Born into a family where her caretakers are lost in the world of drug addiction, crime, and also suffer from mental instability, Murray’s fate seems bleak. However, as the statement affirms life is what you make it despite the odds that are against all odds. The life of Liz’s parents took the shape of their lifestyle choices hence they suffer the bitter consequences. Liz chooses to take the opposite route despite the adversities and hardships she to face all through her childhood. The story is as inspirational as it can get; a homeless, abandoned girl survives the hard streets of New York and eventually enrolls in Harvard. Indeed life takes on the meaning you to give it, as it is with Liz’s extraordinary life journey.
“I learned that the world is actually filled with people all ready to tell you how likely something is, and what it means to be realistic. But what I have also learned is that no one, no one truly knows what is possible until they go and do it.”
As an individual who went through poverty and desolation in her childhood but ends up making a better life for herself, Liz is a testament to the impossible becoming possible. Hence the assertion highlights that people cannot rely understand what is really possible in this world unless they actually achieve it. Society molds us to be cynical in regard to success hence we place limited expectations to our dreams in the name of being realistic. However, life stories such as Liz Murray’s attest to the possibility of the impossible.
“For years, maybe for my whole life, it felt as though there was a brick wall down the middle of everything. Standing outside those buildings, I could almost picture it. On one side of the wall, there was society, and on the other side there was me, us, the people in the place I come from. Separate.”
Liz led a life that made her feel like an outsider, neglected by society and had to scavenge to survive while others prosper. Her experiences are ones that have not been shared by many but by the few of where she comes from. Accordingly, this molds her perspective of the world and can never really feel like part of society despite achieving success in adulthood.
