A reflection on growing up in a changing world, the experiences that shape us, and the possibility of building a different future.
The beginning is not the whole story
I was born in 1982 in Riga, when Latvia was still part of the Soviet Union. By the time I was growing up, the world I knew was changing. The Soviet Union was collapsing, Perestroika was reshaping society, and the 1990s brought uncertainty that could be felt on the streets as well as at home.
When people speak about childhood, they sometimes picture safety, innocence, and an easy road toward adulthood. That was not the world I experienced. Crime was rising, daily life could be unpredictable, and what many call “street life” became part of the environment that shaped me.
The circumstances we do not choose
I grew up in a family struggling with addiction. There was poverty, hunger, and there were moments when hope seemed very far away. I do not mention those things because hardship makes anyone special. I mention them because they are real, and because somewhere there may be a person living through something similar right now.
As children, we do not choose the family into which we are born. We do not choose the country, the decade, or the troubles waiting outside the door. Yet those circumstances can start to feel like a verdict on the rest of our lives. When survival takes up so much of your energy, it can be difficult to imagine a future beyond it.
But a beginning is a place, not a sentence.
Survival and strength are not the same thing
Surviving hard times is not always dramatic. Sometimes it means getting through another day. Sometimes it means learning too early that life is unfair. And sometimes it means carrying habits or fears that take years to understand.
I cannot pretend that every difficulty disappears when we decide to change. Nor do I believe that a positive attitude alone solves poverty, addiction, or the consequences of our choices. Real life is more complicated than a slogan.
What I have come to believe, however, is that our past does not have to be the only voice telling us who we are. We can learn. We can take responsibility for what is within our control. We can ask for help, make different choices, and begin again — even when progress is slow.
The life I have today
Today, I am a devoted family man and a proud father of three. That fact matters deeply to me, not because it erases the past, but because it reminds me that the future did not have to look exactly like my childhood.
I still carry the lessons of where I came from. Those experiences influence the way I think about resilience, faith, responsibility, and hope. They also influence the stories I want to tell.
My memoir, If I Made It, You Will Make It Also, grew from this journey. Its message is not that everyone will have the same path or that change will always be easy. It is that a difficult beginning need not be the final chapter.
For anyone standing at the beginning
Perhaps you have known poverty. Perhaps your family struggled with addiction. Perhaps your challenges have been entirely different. I cannot know your circumstances, and I would never claim that my story is a formula for yours.
But I want to leave you with a thought: you are more than the conditions in which your story began. What happened to you matters. What you choose to do next matters too.
There may be setbacks. There may be days when progress is impossible to see. Still, the page in front of you has not yet been written.
Your beginning does not define your ending.
— Uldis Zaharans
If you would like to explore more of this journey, you can read my memoir If I Made It, You Will Make It Also, or learn more on my My Story page.
