Everyday I log in here to read some news. Starting with the headlines, I take a sneak peek in the sport section and get updated on the SO critical news of the gossip columns. If I'm in a real masochistic mood, I read posts about the Middle East's conflict too. This wandering around between reports and their talkbacks always brings me to wonder about an interesting anecdote.
Each and every time, I find angry comments even on the posts that made me the happiest. On the other hand, I find supportive comments to subjects that make my day frustrating. The fact that every post can cause such a various range of emotions, only makes me realize that in our lives there are truly no bad or good events, and everything is open to interpretation.
After all, interpretation is the key to everything in life. It is the mother of all our happy and sad thoughts. And while we do not always have full control of the events that happen in our lives, we DO have control of what they mean to us. You'll probably be surprised to hear, but I didn't ask for my Muscular Dystrophy. It came to me even before I was born and just sat on my spine's nerves, no questions asked. And no, my parents weren't asked either. Back then there was not a QA test that indicated the quality of the product. I came like this, exactly how I am, no gift receipt.
So how, in all of the martyred saint's names, can a disease that has sentenced me to constant health deterioration, caused the need of help 24/7 and made every simple task into a challenge, be taken positively?
You can choose to start, for example, with the saying "Play the hand you're dealt" or in my case, "Play despite the hand you're dealt."The fact that I know in advance that the future will be tougher, brought me to concentrate on the here and now in a much more powerful way. I'm trying not to postpone goals and dreams to "someday," because "someday" means "if ever." And so, a little after the age of 27, I am proud about conquering many summits that brought great happiness with them, and a lot of inspirational stories that pushed other people to go and conquer their own dreams.
I don't think I would have had the time to study what I've always wanted, start my own business, travel the world, give lectures in lots of different places and publish a children's book, without knowing that the most limited thing I've got is my time here on earth. After all, my muscles may be weaker tomorrow, I know, but until then they need to be used in order to fulfill another dream of mine. Adriana Lima -- Be ready.
True, my situation is not so simple. It really can't be, if actions like breathing, talking and eating are considered extreme physical activities for me. It can't be simple if an ant is taking a walk on my hand in the middle of the night and I've got nothing to do about it. It can't be simple if by chance the TV is on the shopping channel and there is no one around to switch it for me. Not simple at all.
But still, my ability to get rid of the self-pity lies with that same decision to see things differently. The choice to see things differently made me understand that, thanks to this decree, I've became the person I am today. Thanks to the facilities I was forced to stay in, I've met amazing people that became an inseparable part of me. Thanks to the never-ending challenges, I've reached some crazy peaks and successes. Thanks to the things I'm saying out of this shriveled body in this wheelchair, people who were walking around with prejudice for years have been shaken. And let's face it, thanks to my disease; I have the privilege of writing to you here on The Huffington Post in order to prove to you that everything always depends on the perspective.
So if I can delete the words "poor thing" completely from my vocabulary, despite my condition, anybody can. There isn't a magic pill or a superpower you are born with, but the understanding that for the situation that we are in right now there are a hundred other perspectives, and one of them has got to be positive. Of course we are allowed and even should cry over milk that spilled, a dream that wasn't fulfilled, a relationship that has ended or a job that has been suddenly suspended, as long as we remember that these tears might hide an important lesson or a new beginning.
This is how the most frustrating questions in life become completely irrelevant. Take me for example; I stopped asking a long time ago "Why the hell do I deserve this?" After all, I've already given you all the reasons right here, above.