Hello, reader. I am writing this in the middle of an all-nighter because I failed to care about this exam at the right time, and now I have no choice but to care very urgently. These are the sorts of times that make the past wander back in uninvited.

Today, one of my tutoring students told me that she got a 97 on her midterm and that she would not have earned that score without me. Whether that is entirely true is beside the point. It was a very kind thing to say, and it felt very good to hear. We should probably all be a little kinder to each other, though that is a different essay.

What stayed with me, though, was how often she says she is not very good at math, or programming, or any of the neighboring sciences. This mini-essay is really about a memory that surfaced while thinking about this and I would rather not lose it again.

Back in 4th or 5th grade, I moved countries. Because of the move, I missed about a month of school and fell out of step with the curriculum. I had also been dropped into a very different educational system, which did not help. I fell behind, and for the first time in my life, I started getting bad grades.

Math was where it hit hardest. For the next two years, I did terribly on math exams. If you want proof of how strange and painful that was for me, I can tell you that I still remember getting a 63 out of 100 on a 6th-grade math final. And before anyone rushes in to defend 63 as a number with hidden potential, I would ask that we focus on the emotional devastation and not the statistics.

That whole stretch of time planted a very firm belief in me that I was simply bad at math, and that I should probably direct my future elsewhere. Deep down, I did not fully believe it, but that hardly mattered. I had no evidence in my favor, and quite a lot that seemed to support the case against me.

Then, in 7th grade, my math teacher changed my life.

She had this unnerving ability to see exactly what mistakes I was making and, somehow, what was happening in my head while I was making them. But more than that, what changed me were the things she said. She would ask me questions in class, and because I was actually paying attention for once, I would answer them correctly. Every encouraging word from her seemed to chip away at that old belief that I was bad at math.

Slowly, I started to feel more confident in what I could do, and that may be one of the lovelier self-fulfilling prophecies available to us. You have to believe in yourself a little more. You also have to be kinder to yourself, which is both obvious advice and, somehow, still difficult.

Long story short, I ended up doing well in math for the rest of my school years. In college, I chose majors that were heavily mathematical and did well in those too. My career will involve a fair amount of math. All of this is very funny to me, considering what I used to believe about myself.

That woman really changed my life. It is strange how far one small push from someone who cares can go, especially when it arrives at exactly the moment you need it. A little belief from someone else, and then eventually a little belief in yourself, can alter the whole direction of your life. Truly, who would I be without her?