Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

As a boy, my mother continued to talk to me about my attitude and began to make an impression.

She didn’t lecture because she was discovering more subtle ways to encourage me. She memorized poems and famous sayings and kept quoting them to me.

Thinking about it now, Mother was incredible, memorizing long poems like Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” She often quoted to me a poem called “You Have Yourself to Blame” — a poem I’ve never been able to find in print. But it’s about people offering excuses for failing to do their best. The bottom line was that we have only ourselves to blame. We create our own destiny by the way we do things. We have to take advantage of opportunities and be responsible for our choices.

Mother stayed on me until I fully grasped that I am the one ultimately responsible for my life. I had to take charge if I wanted to amount to anything.

—Dr. Ben Carson