Who are you most inspired by?
I’m most often inspired by people who overcome long odds to do amazing things.
Not always famous people. Not always people whose names show up in history books. Sometimes they are people whose names I can’t even remember, though I have never forgotten their stories.
Years ago, a teacher who mentored me told me about a student she once taught. I have been wracking my brain trying to remember his name, but I just can’t pull it back. What I remember is the story.
He was confined to a wheelchair and had very limited use of his hands. I believe he used one hand to operate the joystick on his wheelchair, but when he needed to write, he did it by holding a pen in his teeth.
And he wrote.
He almost never missed a day of school, my mentor told me. During one winter break, he had surgery to have a rod placed in his back. Most of us would have milked that for every bit of sympathy and recovery time we could get. He was back in school almost immediately after the break.
He was a straight-A student.
He did not complain.
Years later, that same teacher showed me an article about him. He was in college, serving as a graduate assistant, and engaged to be married.
I wish I remembered his name. I don’t. But I remember what his life said to me.
It said, “What’s your excuse?”
That is the kind of person who inspires me. Not because their lives are easy. Not because they pretend pain, difficulty or limitation do not exist. They inspire me because they face those things and keep going anyway. They remind me how much I have, and how few excuses I really have for not getting things done.
I saw a version of that same kind of determination in one of my own students this year.
She was on the spectrum and faced some significant emotional challenges. There were days when simply being in class was not easy for her. But what stood out to me was not the challenge. It was the diligence.
Even when she missed class, she came back and insisted on turning in missing work, even when I was willing to excuse it. She cared about the quality of her work more than almost any student I have ever taught. She did not want a pass. She wanted to do the work well.
That inspires me.
She graduated last month, and I hate that I will not see her in class this coming year. I will miss her presence. I will miss her effort. I will miss the quiet reminder she gave me that character is often revealed not in the easy assignments, but in the ones we have every reason to avoid.
People like that inspire me because they do not let me romanticize my own obstacles.
They remind me that difficulty is real, but so is diligence.
They remind me that showing up matters.
They remind me that excellence is still possible, even when life makes it harder than it ought to be.
And they remind me, more often than I would like to admit, that I have far fewer excuses than I pretend I do.
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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
