I'm Rianna, and normally people write because they have a reason why we should listen to them. Whether it's that they’ve written a book, or developed an app, or changed the course of our history, they are somehow a leader or will somehow inspire you. But, I'm just Rianna, and I've done nothing yet. I'm 19 and I work at a shoe store, but I still think you should listen to me, because humans are not just a sum of our accomplishments and I really like to talk. I've lived a lot of life; when I was two years old, doctors told my mom that there was something seriously wrong with me -- they were convinced it was leukemia or juvenile arthritis, and the list goes on. My mom prayed, my family prayed, and people who had never heard my name before this prayed, and it went away just as quickly as it came, and no one would ever be able to explain it to my mother.
Years later, she received a letter from doctors that said they had concluded it was a virus that just went crazy in my small body, but my mother was not convinced -- she raised me to believe I was meant to be here. That I was saved to do something and I hope that I will. Now stupidly as a child, I believed that this meant I was indestructible, which made me very careless with a record so long at the emergency room that doctors often pulled me away from my mother to ensure I was not being abused at home. As I grew it caused me to get lost; I didn't know what I was meant to do. I went to school everyday and work everyday and home. I saw my friends, I saw my family, but my life was average. I was no mother Theresa, and I surely wasn't producing an app anytime soon, so I rendered myself useless and stuck to what I was apparently good at. As if selling shoes to people who walk into a shoe store requires talent. If these people didn't want shoes, I don't think they'd walk through the door in the first place.
"It's a numbers game" is what I tell the new people I train to work in our store -- if you take an extra item to everyone, some of them are bound to buy it. This speech is the same numbers game if I stand up here and sell my story to everyone in the crowd -- some of you are bound to think I know what I'm talking about. Success is a numbers game; if you try enough times, one time you are bound to succeed. One time, that's all it takes. One person and you're inspired to try all over again. I've been told I work too hard, that I need to learn to let go, "don't hold onto the past Rianna", "stop trying for something you won't get" but the numbers game.
It turns out we're all different; everyday we spend on this earth is because we were wanted here or needed here. Yet, every one of you is no different of a story than me because realistically, anyone can die at any second, and every one of you who didn't die this second got the extra time because you needed it for something. So you can live your life imagining that this is a waste or attempting to consume all experiences as if you will never have enough time, but the truth is, you have the exact amount of time you need. That at the end of the day you will see and do everything that God or the universe intended you to see and do. That if you are meant for greatness -- which I believe we all are, you will have your moment. I never understood why people give up when there's a world full of people who depend on you. I will always fight, because you never know whose life you will affect, or change, or save. I will fight because this is a numbers game, and if you attempt to save all, you will accidentally save at least one.
