Tuesday, December 1, 2015

The Legless Model, Deaf/Blind Lawyer, and Armless Pilot Are Not Your Life Stories

Once upon a time I saw a Lifetime movie about a quadriplegic (someone paralyzed from the neck down) woman that graduated from Harvard. The movie went though her journey to succeed. It showed her learning all the lessons everyone else would learn through grade school and then making it to college. Her mother was her teacher and really the student. Then it showed her mother putting in  a whole lot of work to get her to each of those expensive Harvard classes. In the movie she and her mother worked so hard that she ended up getting her master degree. The movie, The Brooke Ellison Story, was unbelievable and funny at times until the end where we were informed that it was based on a true story.

Yes, there's a quadriplegic woman named Brooke Ellison who strived for so much success Harvard gave her an honorary doctorate. Does this make you believe that your goals are that much easier to accomplish with hard work? Me either, but they are interesting to hear about.

Apparently stories like Brooke's are supposed to make us dream a little bigger because every once in a while a blog tosses them out at us. The first unbelievable true life story that I can remember reading about this year was the model with no legs.
Her name is Kanya Sesser. Her biography reads that she models lingerie and she likes to surf despite having no legs. A Huffington Post article also mentioned her being an athlete. Sounds crazy, right? Some of us don't even think about modeling because we're told we are too short. Plus the older I get the less comfortable heels are. However, this woman Kanya has no legs and she's unstoppable.
Then recently there was news of a deaf blind woman who received her law degree from Harvard. Haven Girma is actually the first deaf blind graduate of Harvard law school. Her background story is a little more inspiring than the previous. She comes from a family who struggled getting education because of disabilities, but then she came to the United States and took advantage of programs many of us don't think of that much.
via XONecole

If those aren't enough for us, XONecole just published a blog post about the armless pilot. Her name is Jessica Cox and she has learned to do everything with her feet. Really she applies makeup, eats food, drives a car, and flies airplanes with her feet.

After reading all these the younger me would be falling out with a huge headache trying to figure out how I can achieve my dreams if these women are doing what they want. The 29 year old me knows better. I've learned their stories are not mine. I have to do my success path according to what works for me, not what worked for a woman with a totally different goal.


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