Making a Difference in the World – What It Really Takes

[private][private]Making a Difference: The Role of Realism, Perseverance and Requiring Less

By Donna W. Hill

http://www.americanchronicle.com/authors/view/3885

Song written by Donna about Passions (Click here)

Making a difference means challenging assumptions and expectations. To endure while bucking the tide requires Realism, perseverance and the ability to thrive with less support than others require.

Realism is embracing the negative and the positive. If we wear rose-colored glasses, we miss the things that are calling out for change, the places where we can truly make a difference. If we only see those places of lack, we miss the foundations upon which change can and must be made.

My quest is to challenge assumptions about what it means to be blind. Decades of technological innovation have enabled some blind people to excel in careers never dreamed possible like engineering, chemistry and auto mechanics. Nonetheless, unemployment remains stuck at seventy percent, Braille literacy has fallen to ten percent and society seems comfortable supporting most blind adults through government programs.

My weapon in the struggle is my ability to write about the people in the trenches who are slugging it out against low expectations and apathy. I challenge myself to be a better writer and a better editor.

The odds are against making much progress. Nonetheless, I proceed, because I know that there are many talented blind Americans who want to contribute to society and are turned away before being given a fair chance or an equal education.

I also know that Braille has inestimable value. I was one of those legally blind kids who was supposed to act sighted, even though it meant I read so slowly, that, had I wanted to finish my homework, I would have had time for nothing else., I had constant headaches from having to get so close to the book. Audio learning, which I began in college, is not literacy. Listening was what humans did before the written word. It took decades to repair the holes in my education.

When I began this journey several years ago, I would have never dreamed that the New York Times would feature a blind Wall Street executive calling for Braille’s abolishment! Nonetheless, it happened. Who am I to argue with someone who has achieved so much using no Braille whatsoever? Her secret is that she has assistants to read to her and to take her dictations and put them into English. Most of us don’t have funding for such luxuries, and many who do bristle at the thought of being so dependent. Nonetheless, that article was a springboard for discussions among blind people as well as for me to use in my writing.

If I don’t stay grounded in reality, I could easily fall into the trap of believing that my efforts are pointless. In order to persevere, to continue to be an advocate at the highest level of my abilities, I must set aside my need for immediate gratification. Certainly, things happen that encourage me, and people express their appreciation. I admit that I need that. I know, however, that I am capable of proceeding with a lower than average amount of re enforcement[/private][/private]

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