CLICK >>>>>> Take a new look at the world after watching this short video.
Absolutely inspirational ! A message for all of us ! Next time you're feeling low, wondering how to cope, worried about that pimple on your chin or, yet another crease across the forehead, take heart from his message.
"Ladies - you are all beautiful" - "Men - You are the man "
This is probably the most moving video I have ever viewed. And you ?
the sense of humour, it's a wonderful thing, such a pity people are offended by it. political correctness kills progress. The video above shows the guy cracking jokes. Most disabled people I know have great things to laugh about. My cousin (paralysed from the waist down) often asks kids if they want to "have a race". Parents can often get offended by this, I really have no idea how, kids love interacting with anyone that will give them the time of day, and Steve (cousin) plays basketball, much to the surprise of many.
The blind customer i spoke of earlier, he used to joke about "seeing" things all the time, and honestly, some people said nasty things because of that, but, the guy was blind, no going back, he had the choice between accept it, or live bitterly forever. They say strong people are those that feel no pain. For me, strong people are the ones that feel, accept, and OVERCOME the pains.
wow, what an inspiration....puts a lot of us to shame with our moaning about this and that....doesn't it!
Deal! Health, happiness and howls of raucous laughter.
I'm happy to read everything turned out fine and had a howl about the liposuction remark. One thing is for sure: you and I should NEVER share a room in a French hospital! We'd kill them with our humour (yes, mine is as wicked as yours).
So, let's stay healthy, okay?
Yes, I think you could be right. And everything turned out fine, thank you - I did cry though when I got myself released early (against doctors' orders - tough) to get back to my nearly 2 year old as he was then and he was frightened to touch or cuddle me in case he hurt mummy. Bless him. I also said to the surgeon that if I wrote in marker pen in the relevant places, please could he do a bit of liposuction while he was there - he blinked at me as though I was insane. Oh well. I think I just have a strange sense of humour that not everyone gets.
Correction: MOST doctors just don't have a sense of humour. Very frustrating, isn't it? I keep trying, though, keep trying and - when in hospital - at least manage to make the nurses laugh behind the doctor's back.
Hope everything is okay now that they took that 7" stinker out!
@ Ruth Deborah - I think some doctors just don't have a sense of humour - when I had emergency surgery for a 7" tumour I asked if they could put it in a jar so I could take it home and poke the damned thing with a big stick for causing such problems. Absolute stony faced response, followed by a resounding "no". Shucks.
I'm getting used to it, Zoe ... to be treated like a freak, I mean ... and that's a darn lie, because one never gets used to that. Wheelchair, no wheelchair,O², no O², I am a human being and my head is still working perfectly.
Valerie, cry or not, who cares? I think we all admire the guy for his positive attitude and I can tell you it is very difficult to get through to people with a positive attitude and humour when you are handicapped. Even doctors get angry when I joke about my creaky carcass and uncooperative lungs. To hell with it: life is short and handicap or not, we all try to make the best of it, don't we? And humour helps, it really does.
I admit I did not cry - I smiled. His evident enjoyment of life, his perspective on other people and his genuine enthusiasm with that big smile was, an old cliche I know, like a ray of sunshine. So, yes, I smiled. I wish I had a friend with a personality like that - every conversation would brighten up my day.
Also remember when i worked in Belguim, and a group of three friends would come into the pub, one of them being blind, and nobody would go take their order because of "his eyes".
He bought me a big box of chocolates every christmas, because I was "the one that looked after them every friday evening"
disabled people... are PEOPLE. nothing more, nothing less. The man was well able to smell the beers, and tell both his friends which was theirs, told a great frw jokes, and knew which coin was which, and found his way around without a stick. He was just as "able" for life as any of the rest of us. It's all about attitude.
The mother you met yesterday is who we need more of. I work in a hotel, we get a lot of young students on internships, studying hotellerie, who spend two or three weeks with us. They're kids, like, 16, 17, but the attitudes vary.
The guests at the hotel range from young sporty types, to eccentric old couples,with toy dogs in pushchairs. We get able bodied people, as we get disabled people.
I find it shocking, completely shocking, the reactions of some of these kids to disabled people. When someone enters the restaurant in wheelchairs, I often have to stop the younger ones from going to take the order, because of all the fumbling, and the idea that they feel that they have to IGNORE the disabled person, and ask someone else what he,or she would like to eat. I set up a training excercise, with a wheelchair bound cousin of mine, whereby he would wheel himself in, and wait, out of the 12 staff we sent to take the order, a staggering 8 asked his wife what he would have, and avoided eye contact with him. I made him talk up, and tell them that although his legs didn't work, he COULD speak, hear, and even THINK for himself. Embarassing for the young interns, but, hopefully they learned a lesson.
that should read: tooT my horn
And closed up it is, Zoe. You should see the reactions of most parents when their child/children, fascinated by my electric wheelchair + O² tubes dangling from my nose, come close and are ready to ask WHY? (what else?) The parents react as if I were some kind of little green woman from Mars, or had a horrible disease. Only every once in a while, will a parents allow the child to come over, too my horn (yes, I have one)and chat with me. Because of this attitude, one feels even more disabled and simechat of an outcast.
Positive note: yesterday a yound mother allowed her little boy to climb up on my lap and okayed me taking him for a wee ride. He was overjoyed, so was I. He also felt the flow of O² on his little hand and told me that I'd be much better when I was a 'big girl'. I had a hard time not to cry at the beauty of all this.
I mean it in the way that many people throw words around these days. I posted this on my facebook wall, and got "OMG,poor guy", and "i feel so sorry for him" Someone actually went down the patronising route of "aww, I just want to cuddle him".. and more of the same.
I actually think that people know when you post this that you're open for dialogue, and... most people won't talk about this sort of stuff, only nod, scuff their shoes, and say "how awful". The thing is, the stigma attached to being disabled, to being ANYTHING is not ever going to go away UNTIL we talk about it, it's like something I said about mental illness last week. Everyone will post a status for an hour,on facebook, or whatever, and put people on the 93% guilt trip, but nobody will actually discuss it. What is wrong with out closed up society
Sympathy is not ONLY negative, Zoe. Here are a few more definitions:
*Sharing the feelings
*An inclination to support or be loyal to or to agree with an opinionof others
*A relation of affinity or harmony between people; whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other
*fellow feeling
*understanding
Nothing wrong with the word in UK English, Canadian English, or even US English, but if you want me to change my sympathy into admiration, I'll go along.
"sympathy", as used in English, is just the wrong word, pride and admiration, perhaps, but pity?? Feeling sorry for someone who definitely has a healthier frame of mind that most folk i know. The man is rich, in spirit, soul, whatever you want to call it.
Sympathy is what you feel when pet rescue is on television, in my heart.
How could you NOT feel sympathy for this guy, Celeste? Accepting and living with a severe handicap (which often makes you dependant, which is even worse) isn't easy, let me tell you. I cried at the beauty of his optimism and acceptance ... but then, I also cry at beauty.
People who feel embarrassed when they see anyone 'different', people who pull their children away when they want to aks me why I have that plastic 'umbilical cord' dangling from my nose, or why I don't walk but 'wheelchair' around ... those people still have a lot to learn and guys like this one may (MAY) teach them a wee lesson.
Celeste, you said exactly what i have been thinking, I did cry, but at the sheer optimism and motivation of this guy, in contrast to the "i think I broke a nail" society we seem to live in
Beautifully said Celeste. We are all so humbled by those with different abilities.