SHOULDER
I clumsily tripped and injured my right shoulder. For a few days, I was unable to lift my right arm to shoulder height. That forced me to do most things with my left hand. While I'm predominantly left-handed, it was difficult to avoid using my right hand and I constantly found myself with shooting pain from carelessly trying to do too much too quickly. This was a temporary annoyance, an inconvenience, but it got me thinking about people who have permanent physical or mental disabilities, people who for long periods, even their whole lives, have to adjust, to take more time, to find alternate ways of accomplishing their goals, to live with pain. I realized that this injury was a good thing because it enabled me to empathize with the many people who can do what most of us do naturally and easily only with difficulty or who can never do the things most of us find simple.
Very often we can't see others' disabilities. I tried, mostly successfully, to conceal the pain of my injury from my friends and colleagues. I wonder how many people I pass on the street every day are successfully concealing their conditions from me, silently facing difficulties, overcoming disabilities with good humor and courage.
I've always attempted to give people the benefit of the doubt, to assume the best about people's efforts, to allow for problems, both mental and physical, to reward people but I fear I may sometimes blame lack of effort for what is actually some physical or mental injury. When people successfully conceal their disabilities, especially psychological disabilities, we tend to think they're just not trying. We're all the sum of all of our experiences, talents, even injuries of various kinds over many years. I promise I'll think more carefully, try to be better informed, try to be more generous in evaluating the performance of other people in the future. I'll try to watch more carefully for difficulties in advance so that I might be able to help overcome some of the problems.
A doctor once noted that if a one-legged man ran a twenty-minute mile he wouldn't win any races but could take pride in a tremendous personal accomplishment. We should remember that many people we encounter are suffering from similar impediments which aren't so easy to spot and undertake to help them accomplish their own goals, whether or not our good fortune enables us to do better, more easily.
9-3-01