Jeannette Walls

On September 21, 2011, Jeannette Walls, author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Glass Castle, came to speak at Ball State University. Since the event was put on by Freshman Connections and the audience, made up of mostly students, had already read her book, she decided to speak of some of the many life lessons she had learned through her life growing up in poverty. One of the life lessons she shared dealt with facing fears. She used the story from her book about when her and her father went chasing after an imaginary demon in the desert night. She explained that since we invent our fears, we are stronger than them and are able to overcome them.

For Jeannette Walls, her fear was the uncertainty of what would happen when people found out that she had grown up in extreme poverty. This secrete and the shame that came with it isolated her from the world. Through writing her book, she hoped that she could make others realize that they were not that different from her and others who were in situations similar to what she went through. Jeannette Walls described how a cheerleader, who had made fun of a girl similar to Walls, now had a different view of others less fortunate than her. Walls also described how a former classmate from her old school in Welch felt terrible about making fun of Walls and wanted to apologize for treating her badly. Walls did not want an apology because she said that she would have probably done the same thing to the other girl if they had been in each other’s place.

Jeannette Walls’ story can teach us a lot about ourselves. No matter what our past was like, we will be able to overcome the rough times in our lives if we just have faith in ourselves.