Have you ever had one of those life-changing experiences that made you realize there is a world of untapped potential out there? What about the wealth of untapped potential within yourself?

Helen Keller, renowned author and teacher recounts her moment of enlightenment.

The most important day in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives, which it connects. It was a day in March, shortly before I turned seven.

On the afternoon of that day, I stood on the porch, dumb and expectant. I guessed from my mother's constant activity that something was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps. I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me. I had been angry and bitter for weeks.

I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand thinking that it was my mother. Someone took it and held me close in her arms.

The morning after my teacher came; she led me into her room and gave me a doll. As I played with it, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l." I was at once interested and tried to imitate the finger motions. When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly, I ran downstairs to show my mother. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed, I learned to spell other words, but it was only several weeks after that I understood that everything has a name.

One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. Earlier in the day we had had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r." Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and "w-a-t-e-r" is water, but I persisted in confounding the two. In frustration, she dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I threw it on the floor. I was particularly pleased when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. I felt neither sorrow nor regret. I had not loved the doll. In the still, dark world in which I lived, there was no strong sentiment or tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going outside to the sunshine. This thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.

We walked down the path to the well house. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly, I felt the misty consciousness of something forgotten - a thrill of returning thought; and somehow, the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.

I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house, every object that I touched seemed to vibrate with life. That was because I saw everything with a strange, new sight that had come to me.

I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them - words that made the world blossom for me. It would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my bed at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed to see a new day come.

The process of self-discovery is incredibly rewarding. With it comes the awareness and choice to be who you want to be. We wish you great success on the journey.