Michelle Harris

To be honest with you, I don't think I'm successful. I think I could have done better in life had I known some things early on. But what has gotten me through life is that I've always kept God in my life and made sure that I prayed. The other thing that has helped me, even as a single parent and being a mother, is being an organized person - not a person that is always in such a fast pace, rushing this and rushing that. Just taking time and thinking things through has helped me a lot in life. Being organized and not being a person that's always go, go, go, go, go - slowing down, you can see things a lot clearer and think things through and make wiser decisions. That is how I've gotten through.

The best career advice I ever received was from my grandmother when I was young. She's deceased now, but when I was young, she told me that when you are in your career or working, there are going to be some things you're going to have to say no to, and some things you'll be able to say yes to. You'll have to have discernment to know what to say yes to and what to say no to. I didn't understand when she told me that, but as I became an adult, I understood what she meant by the time I turned older. It's very factual because there's some things you have to say no to and yes to.

The first thing I would say is always take care of your mental health. That is very important - emotionally and mentally. And then self-care is the other thing, but people always think that self-care is just hair and nails and feet. But self-care is also education. That's also called self-care. I didn't have an opportunity to further my education beyond high school because I got Joshua, and I didn't know what I know now, the road to take or the steps to take. But take care of your mental health. Always remember that self-care is not just taking care of things like hair and nails and feet. Make sure you, if you are able to and if you have an opportunity, there's so many resources out here - take care of yourself through self-care and educate yourself too. Everybody doesn't go to college, but there's other resources out here that you can use, so make sure that you do take care of your mental health and your self-care.

In the field that I'm working with now with children with autism, the biggest challenge for me right now is that I'll be 53 in November, and Joshua is my only child who's now grown. The biggest challenge is the loud noise that I hear when I'm in the childcare - that is a huge adjustment for me. Very, very huge. It's because of the different tones and the screeches that the children use. Not because they're always sad, but some of them just do that. That's an adjustment for me. When I was driving the bus, it was different from being in a childcare. When you're on the bus, you don't hear so much of that. It's a different type of noise. But actually working in a childcare center, it's a different type. It's kind of like ongoing, and sometimes it can be three hours non-stop. On the bus, it's a little different. So that's the challenging thing for me right now that I'm dealing with. I've even went on Amazon and got some kind of earplugs to block out noise. Just like some children with autism have headphones when they're sensitive with the loud noise, I'm adjusting to that right now. I didn't even know that until I started this field. I had no idea. It's different when you're on the bus.

I value people. What I mean by that is I try to think outside of the box and try to have a selfless mindset. It doesn't matter what my circumstances are - I try to model this, not just tell Joshua that, but model it. Because for me, having been through the things that I have been through, I am a cancer patient - breast cancer and uterine cancer. For me to be able to not just tell him to do that, but to model it, is very important because we just never know when it's gonna be our turn in life. And when it's our turn, we want the same thing reciprocated back to us. So I try to model being selfless in life and always thinking outside the box and putting myself in somebody else's shoes. When I'm working with children with special needs, I always remember that they're not giving you a hard time, they're just having a hard time. Sometimes most people have something going on when they're behaving the way they are, even adults - there's something wrong. I try to think that way, I really do.