…And That’s All That I Am

Connie du Toit has an interesting post about people and their limitations, titled Good Hearted, Wrong Hearted:

I have no trouble at all dealing with the reality of an individual’s potential. There is no sadness or feeling of loss for people who are differently abled, or not abled at all. It is just what it is. They are who they are. They will each get to happiness in their own way, if they’re able to get there at all. I don’t overlay my picture of what happiness or success should be on others.

In the same way, I don’t have any expectations beyond the wall that exists for each and everyone of us. Each of us has a wall of some sort. There isn’t any sadness or remorse about that. It just is. The wall is just there. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean that person can’t be happy.

Fortunately, I never had any aspirations to be a ballerina, because at age 14 I was 200 lbs and 6’1” and there was a wall between me and a career as a ballerina. There are other, similar walls for me. You just ignore those walls and find things that are available to the unique hand of cards you’ve been dealt. If all a child is capable of doing is picking peaches, responding with “You want fries with that?” or some other job or task we tend to think of as menial, we need to get over that. That is us getting in their way, not anything wrong with them.

The whole post is a must-read.