19/08/2026
Who you are today, and who you will become tomorrow, often grows out of what you did (or didn’t do) yesterday.
Hello Beautiful
We often ask ourselves: Is this all there is to life?
For Viola Davis, that question began in Central Falls, Rhode Island, in what she called “abject poverty.” She lived with rats, inadequate housing, hunger, bullying, and violence. She carried the shame of poverty and a fractured sense of self. As she told Brown University, “That was my day-to-day.” She wasn’t dreaming of fame. She was surviving.
The realization came when she discovered acting. After watching Cicely Tyson in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, she said, “It was like falling in love. It was like praying. I didn't hear the rats.” The rats were still there; the poverty remained. But she’d found something that let her look beyond her circumstances: a passion that offered a picture of another life.
finding passion is one thing. Pursuing it is another. At 14, Viola won a place at the Young People’s School for the Performing Arts, a chance that meant long bus rides and walking miles. The opportunity arrived; she still had to show up. She did. Later she studied theatre at Rhode Island College and Juilliard. As she put it, “It’s the
passion that catapults you out.” Not perfect circumstances. Not certainty. Passion.
Her transformation wasn’t merely from poverty to acclaim. It was from shame to self-worth, from invisibility to voice, from surviving to purpose. “The biggest treasure that I’ve found was that I found a purpose,” she told Brown. Becoming, at its heart, is this: you uncover something inside you, decide to pursue it, take the opportunities you can, keep showing up, and heal. In time you become someone who gives hope to others.
Don’t wait for perfection. Take the opportunity. Pursue the passion. Start with what you have. You don’t need to see the whole road; you only need enough courage to take the next step. The woman you dream of becoming is often built by a thousand small decisions: to try, to show up, to keep going, to heal, to become. One day you may look back and realize the life you once thought impossible began with a single decision made when you had very little.
