[nabs-l] Personal characteristics and traits of successfulblind people

[Ashley Bramlett]

Hi Joe,
very well said. I, too, cannot believe blindness is a nuisance anymore. Not 
with the barriers I face because the world is not conducive to nonvisual 
access, especially appliances and technology. Do I think about blindness a 
lot? No, its part of me; actually I have low vision.
I go about my business like making breakfast, listening to the news and 
weather via radio and watching tv shows that are rather auditory a lot and 
feel happy. I don't think about that I'm doing things differently because of 
my vision or feel down over it. But, it does play a role in my ability to 
accomplish visual tasks. For instance filling out job applications; its like 
half are inaccessible; I came across at least three which say errors, fix 
the boxes by red stars, and I do not know what the errors are. or others I 
fill out are not accepted telling me that I missed fields, and I have no 
idea which fields I missed. I need some eyes to assist me.
Then there is the transit issue; with mobility being a challenge, I struggle 
with that, and hate the inconvenience of paratransit.
Then you have electronics which we cannot see.  So,
no its not a nuisance, and we have not made enough progress to render 
blindness insignificant in doing what we want to do.

Anyway, I agree with you on success. Its about living your passions. Its 
also, I believe, about making goals, and doing them to change the world. Go 
out and achieve big things for you.

Also, yeah, success is you. Having a federal job as you do in that field, is 
a rather successful thing you accomplished.
You  are smart.

Ashley
-----Original Message----- 
From: Joe
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2014 9:12 PM
To: 'National Association of Blind Students mailing list'
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Personal characteristics and traits of successfulblind 
people

Phil,

A successful blind person looks, acts, and communicates like me. Isn't that
obvious?

But, kidding aside, I want to give you a different perspective from the
people whining about how it is unfair to make blindness a factor in success.
Apparently some of us believe that success is success and blindness is
irrelevant, but to deny that blindness is a factor is to deny the reality
that more than 70% of our blind peers are unemployed. To a degree,
overcoming blindness is success onto itself, and if you can't succeed there,
a person's likelihood of succeeding anywhere else is slim. Is the person
willing to advocate for themselves? Are they willing to work twice as hard
to achieve tasks their sighted peers can complete sometimes in half the
time? Are they honest enough with themselves to tell if they possess
sufficient daily living, technology, and communication skills to succeed at
life, let alone the workplace? It may be true that our sighted peers may
need to ponder some of these points, but not with the same necessity or to
the same depth as the blind person who has to be extra competitive to beat
sighted applicants.

At some point over the past several years I stopped subscribing to the NFB
notion that blindness can be reduced to the level of a nuisance. Were that
true, I believe we would have seen better progress where blind people are
concerned. Blindness presents certain unique challenges a person must
regularly overcome to excel. Yes, building up confidence makes the process
easier, but I don't know that we have reached a point in our evolution of
independence that blindness is irrelevant, and certainly not so minimal as
to be labeled a minor inconvenience.

Now, as to success across the board, blind or sighted, I think pursuing your
own passions is a key ingredient. I wrote a blog post on the subject, which
you can read at the link below:

http://joeorozco.com/blog_are_you_living_someone_elses_dream

--
Twitter: @ScribblingJoe

Visit my blog:
http://joeorozco.com/blog

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Phil
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2014 6:29 AM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: [nabs-l] Personal characteristics and traits of successful blind
people

Hi all,

I'm working on a research paper, and would like to hear what you think.
Obviously there are external factors such as accessibility barriers, social
and attitudinal barriers and so on that affect a blind person's likelihood
of success in life.  But if we focus on personal characteristics for a
moment, what do you think are some personal characteristics that can help a
blind person succeed, or ask in a different way, what characteristics and
behavior traits do successful blind people around you exhibit? And what
makes you cite these traits?
For example, some have rightly pointed out that a sense of curiosity and
exploration is key, both curiosity to explore one's physical surrounding,
intellectual curiosity to explore different subjects and career
possibilities, and so on. Others have also pointed out having the courage to
be different is important as a blind person.
What else do you think are important characteristics or behavior traits?
Hope to hear lots of diverse views on this.
Thanks!

Best,
Phil

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