Amanda Gorman's Hill

They say the world will get out of the way for people who know where they’re going. Amanda Gorman personifies this. Growing up the daughter of a teacher in the Westchester section of Los Angeles, Gorman fell in love with language at an early age.  Her relationship with poetry dates at least to the third grade when her teacher read Ray Bradbury’s “Dandelion Wine” to her class. She can’t recall what metaphor caught her attention, but she remembers that it reverberated inside her.

In 2014, at just 16, Gorman became the youth poet laureate of Los Angeles, then three years later, the first national youth poet laureate. Last Wednesday, at just 22, she became the youngest poet to write and recite a piece at a presidential inauguration, following in Maya Angelou and Robert Frost's footsteps. What made her presence on the podium in front of a world audience even more impressive was that Gorman overcame a speech impediment. She has trouble saying her Rs, which causes stage fright. 

“But I don’t look at my disability as a weakness,” Gorman later said. “It’s made me the performer that I am and the storyteller that I strive to be.”

She is incredible at what she does because she knew her calling early in life. Gorman knew that the power of words could bring her meaning. She is proof that once we find our calling, our passion, the possibilities are endless. The world moved out of the way for Gorman — and it can for you. 

You don’t have to know your calling to be successful at a young age. You only have to be aware that you are searching for it; you live a life that asks more questions than it provides answers. Keep asking them. Once you find the right answers for yourself, do as Gorman did and work tirelessly to enjoy what makes you happiest. Don’t stop asking the question because the answer didn’t come immediately. Keep searching and never tire. It will happen. Let’s believe what Gorman said at the end of her poem, “The Hill We Climb”:

“For there is always light if only we are brave enough to see it. 

If we are only brave enough to be it.” 

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