Our Story
I started By Miguel to connect with people through quotes, stories, and everything in between. As someone who has always dreamed big for as long as I can remember, this journey has been wrought with all kinds of challenges. There were many times I felt insignificant, alone, or discouraged by the obstacles impeding my progress, but I am not the only one. There are plenty of others out there who dare to dream big, who are bold enough to embrace the risks, and who sometimes get stuck along their own journeys. This blog was created as a space for all of them. You were never alone.
My greatest inspiration is my mom. From working several jobs while attending university and raising a family, I would not be half the person I am today without her.
Growing up I had plenty of luxuries, I had a loving home and both my parents to say good night to. My mom was disabled, she lost her kidney when I was five years old and my dad worked 60-70 hour weeks to afford her medication and the household bills. When I was ten my mom finally obtained a kidney transplant and from then on I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I was older. I wanted to be my mom’s support.
I went to almost all of her doctor visits and I remember they explained transplants only last about ten years on average, so everything I did and every decision I made was to put myself in a position to excel in those next ten years. I was not the smartest person in any classroom, but I worked harder than anyone else there. I made it into the gifted program, I graduated from a top five high school in the country, I finished a double major and started law school as the youngest in my entire class at twenty years old. I had a school counselor and even the director of the political science program tell me my idea of getting into law school so young was juvenile and quixotic to say the least.
Ironically, they were the ones who were too small minded to understand the drive, ambition, and persistence of a kid who wanted nothing more in this world than to make his disabled mom proud and give her the chance to live a comfortable life. Unfortunately, I ran out of time. Even for the incredibly quick pace I ran through my academic career, my mom did not get the chance to see me take the oath of attorney after passing the bar exam.
You want to know what drove me to start this page? It’s for all the people with giant dreams, goals, ambitions, and ideas who can’t share with everyone, because they are simply too big for the average person to understand. This page gives me a chance to hopefully keep pushing those who might be too afraid or nervous to start their journeys. I was scared too, even against all the advice from counselors, because there was nothing greater in this world than being able to hug my mom with my law school graduation robes on, knowing after all these years this is where her unconditional love, guidance, and unyielding belief in me had led.
We didn’t share a single word in the brief moments of that hug, but there weren’t enough words to capture what that moment would mean to me for the rest of my life.