With everything going on in the world today; innocent people being killed, ‘terror’ erupting in places where we never thought were possible, honesty and openness among us all needs to be more prevalent.
If we were all ‘inside out’, we would be wearing our hearts on our sleeves, letting people ‘read’ us, making more sense and not having to ‘explain’ ourselves all the time. There would be fewer questions, less assumptions, and greater positive experiences in life. In thinking about this from a disability perspective, wouldn’t this make life easier for everyone to understand and accept us to eliminate the fear factor?
I get it, and have said it so many times – “we don’t know what we don’t know”. If you haven’t been exposed to disability, then you are always concerned on how to approach it. Scared that you might say or do the wrong thing.
Authors and scriptwriters often ensure their main characters ‘step into their essence’ by the end of their stories. Their ‘essence’ is who they really are and becomes removed through recognizing ways in which they’ve kept barriers up to protect themselves from ever having to reveal their true selves to others for fear of not being accepted. How often do we really allow others to see who we really are? After all, we’re different with everyone we are in contact with. It’s time we let our barriers down and allow people to see the real us.
For me, I feel that in having a disability it is kind of up to me to put it out there to the world for greater understanding. Let’s eradicate people’s ‘pity’, and enable them to have the deeper knowledge of what it is we face on a day to day basis. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be someone else’s good deed for the day anymore.
I am encouraging others to put it out there more, let people know you. Imagine being in a world where we are more aware of what makes each other tick, what the physical and attitudinal barriers are. Learn the differences between us as humans, and accept people for who they are. What a different place the world would be.
Turn yourself inside out!
Thank you for your inspiration and courage to write about disability in a narcissistic world obsessed with superficial beauty. But mostly thank you for helping us non disabled peopled to learn more about you. Because you are truly beautiful.