As a disabled person I have to think and plan far more than anyone else. If I want to catch a bus I have to consider whether the ramp works, whether there will be someone in the one space who doesn't want to move. It can be a constant worry.
Interpretation
Navigating daily life as a disabled person requires careful planning and consideration of accessibility.
Tanni Grey-Thompson's quote encapsulates the extra mental effort and anxiety that disabled individuals often face when engaging with public spaces and services. Unlike those without disabilities, they must constantly evaluate the availability and functionality of accommodations, which can lead to a significant burden in their daily lives.
In practice
During a speech on inclusivity, I might mention this quote to showcase the unique challenges faced by disabled individuals.
Perhaps we need to redefine our idea of role models; they're not always elite athletes whose success might seem too distant or unachievable. Sometimes it's our friend who just smashed her first 10k, or our Zumba teacher who is enthusiastic, encouraging and real.
I wouldn't have had a sporting career if it hadn't been for the volunteers who agreed to coach me, as a teenager, growing up in south Wales, at a time when others were telling me that wheelchair racing wasn't really athletics.
Disability sport came about largely because of exclusion, because mainstream sport didn't want disabled people to be part of it.
Courageous people feel the same fear everyone else does, they just decide to not be afraid anymore.
You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.
When people flirt with despair about the future, they are less likely to take the actions necessary to safeguard it, focusing instead on the short-term.
Move, but don't move the way fear makes you move.
I was not athletically inclined. I was very quiet, introverted, non-confrontational. My three older brothers were athletes - basketball, football - but I was kind of a momma's boy. Then one day, my brother Roger encouraged me to go to the boxing gym with him. I tried the gloves on, and it just felt so natural.
Do not cringe and make yourself small if you are called the black sheep, the maverick, the lone wolf. Those with slow seeing say that a noncomformist is a blight on society. But it has been proven over the centuries, that being different means standing at the edge, that one is practically guaranteed to make an original contribution, a useful and stunning contribution to her culture.
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