Adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. It's part of our life.
Interpretation
Adversity is an integral part of life that we must accept rather than avoid.
This quote by Aimee Mullins highlights the idea that challenges and hardships are not mere obstacles to be overcome, but rather essential components of our life experience. Instead of seeing adversity as something negative that we must circumvent to live fully, we should embrace it as a valuable part of our journey that can foster growth and resilience.
In practice
During a motivational speech to explain how challenges shape character.
I'm not an advocate for disability issues. Human issues are what interest me. You can't possibly speak for a diverse group of people. I don't know what it's like to be an arm amputee, or have even one flesh-and-bone leg, or to have cerebral palsy.
I've had journalists asking me, 'What do we call you - is it handicapped, are you disabled, physically challenged?' I said, 'Well hopefully you could just call me Aimee. But if you have to describe it, I'm a bilateral below-the-knee amputee.'
An athlete experiences the emotions of pain and elation through triumph and defeat, through teamwork and individuality, as nothing more than a human being...that is the true glory of sport.
I think that everyone has something about themselves that they feel is their weakness... their 'disability.' And I'm certain we all have one, because I think of a disability as being anything which undermines our belief and confidence in our own abilities.
I have learned not to overlook the advantages of being me. From when I was a softball player, and I held the stolen bases record. I would slide into second with my prostheses, and the girl on the base could either step aside or meet two wooden sticks.
In sports, I refused to do any interviews that were just going to become human-interest stories. Don't turn me into a tragic heroine.
I work tirelessly advocating for gun violence prevention and promoting common-sense gun laws that could spare other parents the pain of having their child taken by senseless gun violence - laws the NRA's leadership has fought against relentlessly.
Every American soldier wants as much public support as he can possibly have. That's the soldiers on duty in Iraq, and that's me, as well. We fight better knowing that our people back home support us, back us, and understand what we're doing. It's hugely important.
If frightening sensations are not given the time and attention they need to move through the body and resolve or dissolve, the individual will continue to be gripped by fear.
Coming out, all the way out, is offered more and more as the political solution to our oppression.
People are just afraid of things too much β¦ Sure, evil exists, extremism exists. Somebody could commit a hate crime and hurt me. But they could do the same just because I'm black. They could do the same just because I'm American.
The higher man is distinguished from the lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.