One time when I was grabbing lunch or dinner or coffee or whatever with my old high school French teacher (shout out to all the weird kids who maintained friendships with their teachers after high school/college!), I was lamenting over the fact that my at-the-time college French professor had recently told me I wasn't very good at French. He had put it in a nicer (but not much) way and I was devastated. French was something I had worked hard at improving. I always felt like it wasn't something that came naturally to me; I had to study and work at it and my accent wasn't great. I did well but not superb. But I loved it. Oh how I loved it. I even took a French choir class. More than once! So when this professor, a man whose opinion I respected, told me that it was something I should reconsider pursuing, my heart sank. This is when my wise old Madame looked me in the eye and told me that if people only ever did what the...