My little cousin and her family released their Painted Lady butterflies from their butterfly garden recently.

One of the butterflies alit on the three-year-old’s wrist and contentedly remained there for a few minutes, to the child’s fascination and delight.

“I’m being very gentle with him,” she said, because it was true.

She wasn’t reassuring her parents. She wasn’t being defensive. She wasn’t even boasting. She was affirming herself, saying the words her mother might have said.

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When my nephew was about three, he interrupted dinner to make a pronouncement.

“All of da gwonups!” he said, emphatically addressing his grandparents, parents, and me. “We have a ploblem!”

The “ploblem” turned out to be that he wanted someone to play cars with, and he didn’t have too much trouble solving it.

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I thought that I had gotten over so-called “imposter syndrome,” in which a person feels like a fraud, poorly qualified to do the things they’re doing (or want to do).

I remember when I could not — could not — create a website for my music. It felt totally phony to write a third-person bio (“Casey is a singer-songwriter who labors in obscurity…”) and when I went to write a first-person bio instead, I shut down completely. Years later, I felt grateful not to be there anymore. I could now start things and follow through on them. I could do the work that needed to be done (including writing bios) easily and without angst.

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Have you ever enrolled in a course that you didn’t finish?

I know I have. With online courses, it’s especially easy. It goes along with the books I’ve purchased but never read and the exercise equipment I used once. You just kind of…move on.

Sometimes, dropping out is no big deal. But other times, the results are heartbreaking. Failing to complete high school can limit a person’s job prospects dramatically, and failing to stick to a doctor-recommended diet and exercise regimen can mean the difference between a long, healthy life and a short and miserable one.

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Something had finally clicked for a student of mine.

Trying to find the side length of a square with a perimeter of 56, she said, “I just don't understand how I would get the answer by dividing and getting one number and know that the other three are the same.”

It wasn’t that she understood the concept of division. It was that she was able to articulate clearly what she didn’t understand.

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