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

Sat Mar 29 12:46:11 UTC 2014

Good morning, everyone,

So, going back to how Robin holds up interdependence as a means of 
getting assistance for such things as not quite accessable forms, 
what's wrong with that?
for today, Car

At 02:23 PM 3/28/2014, Ashley Bramlett wrote:
>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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