Wow Erin, first and foremost thank you! For your strength, your vulnerability, your wisdom. Self-doubt seems to come standard with the human experience as I’ve seen people struggle with it, including myself.

There are so many gems you’ve hit on. We decide our purpose and the action to make it come to fruition. I think at its very basic level, our purpose as human beings are to help one another. Big or small, that’s the debt we’re born with.

As we grow and experience, you’re right, we can choose our purpose.

I am so glad you chose to put your work here because I think your point-of-view is relevant and valuable. You obviously have experienced some of the best life has to offer and probably some of the worst. I look forward to reading your work and getting to know you more, Erin.

I started writing on Medium last summer. I’ve learned how important long-form writing is. Short captions and tweets permeate the online world. It’s tough to get a full perspective on someone’s thoughts in 240 characters (or whatever the limit is). But with articles and blogs, you have many more opportunities to learn and even change your mind on the journey of reading from the introduction to conclusion.