Handicap

Everyone has them, whatever you choose to call it, be it thorn, cross, shortcomings, inconvenience, handicap or disability. That ‘something’ we don’t want but we have to live with. We can’t wish it away, ignore it away, spend money to get rid of it, time might not even take care of it. It’s ours for the keeps and we don’t like it, it is painful, difficult, irritating, embarrassing, inconvenient. It’s just in the way of who we want to be, how we think we ought to be. An obstacle that can not be shifted, we just have to work round it and that is exactly what loads of people have done. Paul had the thorn in the flesh, Jesus had to carry his cross, Stevie had his blindness, Nick didn’t have arms or legs, Kechi has her Scars, we have the Paralympic athletes with their disabilities etc. I have mammoth admiration for all these people, some where born with the obstacles, others got it later in life.

We know that Paul did not want the thorn and prayed for it to be removed. I have always wondered, all the people I mentioned above and others, do they long and yearn that things are different? Away from the public glare, do they also pray and ask for the thorn to be removed? Do they keep touching the thorn and wishing life was different, or are they immuned from ever wishing things were different? Have they just learn to live with it and develop a resolute and resourceful attitude?

Some of us, our handicap is not obvious, people can’t see it, but it bites us and make our life difficult, we want it gone, we want a different life but it is just what it is. Sometimes it saddens us, makes us despondent and grates at our soul. But live with it we must learn to do and get on with life. We must know how to drag our bad leg along with us and keep moving on in life. The people I mentioned above and thousands of strong souls are showing us on a daily basis how to live with it, not just survive, but live the abundant life with it. Whatever your ‘it’ is. It is all about our inner attitude in the face of those things that seek to quench our spirit, we say ‘no’ to such forces and declare that even with this thorn I will still keep going.

What is your handicap today? Use it as a climbing stone. Let people see that in spite of ‘that’ it is still possible to thrive. Stick to your dream and vision. Dream the dream, live it big, that’s your calling and it does not change because of the thorn. ‘Just do it’ as Art Williams will say. You wake up in the morning and the first thing that happens is your handicap mocks you in the face, you try to get to the bathroom and you fall over because you can’t see or can’t walk, you somehow managed to get to the bathroom and you see your reflection from the burn, the scars scream at you and already you want to park it in for the day, but you don’t give up, you stay focused on the goal. For someone it is internal handicap, you wake up with demon on your shoulder, whispering you will amount to nothing or a deep sense of emptiness and loneliness envelopes your whole being, your longing for companionship goes unfulfilled and it hurts, but in spite of this you keep going, dragging the fiend along, and you go at a speed the fiend can not tolerate, he drops off. You load your being with light, with positivity, you refuse to give up, you carry that bad leg, you don’t cry ‘why me?’, but you compete, you fight the good fight, you achieve the goal for the day, yet you are aching, in pain, in turmoil. You get into flow, some handicap just have to be ignored, like an unsatisfiable irritating child. Some inconvenience are just there to drain us if we stop to feed it, that appetite is a bottomless pit. We must get on with our life. My sense of loneliness seeks to swallow me whole, but I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t allow it. I will maximise my potential to the extinction of the pain. The pain just have to go or quieten itself as I go about achieving my goals. We are not sitting down together going over the same ground, you can try to make me feel as misreable as you like, today I am not doing it, today I am living and wining. I am going to put it in my pipe and smoke it.

Deal with it!