[NFBF-L] Sharing a great article from this month's Braille Monitor

Thu Jan 12 17:06:43 UTC 2023

What a wonderful article!  Thanks for sharing this positivity with us.

Cathy F.

From: NFBF-L <nfbf-l-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Kaye Baker via NFBF-L
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2023 8:42 AM
To: 'NFB of Florida Internet Mailing List' <nfbf-l at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Kaye Baker <kaye.j.zimpher at gmail.com>
Subject: [NFBF-L] Sharing a great article from this month's Braille Monitor

Good morning Federation Family and Friends:
This morning,  I was bored at work, yes,  full disclosure, it happens, and I was looking over the Braille Monitor for convention info.
I ran across the below article, and felt it was definitely true, and worth sharing.
As someone who has truly had a negative couple of years, this article further solidifies that sometimes the way we think is more powerful  than anything else we do.
I hope you enjoy it.

How Going Blind Helped Me Rediscover the Power of Optimism
by Sameer Doshi
[Sameer Doshi]From the Editor: Sameer has gotten some publicity lately as he promotes his book, The Work Ahead. As you will see from this article he wrote for the Braille Monitor, he works at Microsoft, went blind in his early working years, had some difficulty adjusting, and now believes he is onto something that not only can help blind people but the rest of the world as it struggles with being positive in a time when negative makes the headlines. Here is his offering, which we receive with thanks:
We've all been there. Just when things are going great, life unexpectedly throws you a lemon or a curveball. What do you do? When you have no other option, you make lemonade. You catch the curve ball. I learned this at thirty-one when I went blind overnight. In the years since this devastating surprise, I've made all my dreams come true.
How did this happen? It all comes down to the power of optimism. That's it! Optimism helped me to adapt and continue working in tech, where along the way I've excelled and landed my dream job at Microsoft. I even wrote a novel-about optimism. Stay with me here. I'm about to give you the secret code to develop a forcefield that will repel any nasty situation that comes for you. Here we go!
What's the deal with pessimism?
The events that shape us are like Double Stuf OREOs, a fascinating juxtaposition of good and bad. Long term, we tend to forget the good (these things are delicious!) and dwell on the bad (OMG I ate the entire package?!) This is human nature. But, when we spend too much time worrying, it becomes part of our daily thought process and clouds our perception with negativity. Life becomes tedious. You feel like you're in a rut. This is where optimism comes in! Changing the way your brain frames daily life will change your life.
The power of optimism
Remember what I told you about me going blind when I was thirty-one? Now is when I tell you it also happened to be about a month after my daughter was born. I went blind overnight. There was no warning. In a time of great joy and transition in my life, everything around me was dark. For months, all I could think of was what I could not do. I mean, I was struggling to just put toothpaste on my toothbrush! The only thing I could do to help my wife was simply holding our newborn daughter. I felt like a total failure.
Then, little by little, I switched over to the power of positive thinking. I got an appointment with the Spectrios Institute for Low Vision, and it was there that I was reminded I still had unlimited potential. A counselor, who herself was blind, taught me about a special software to allow me to use a computer again. Then came other lessons, including how to put that toothpaste on my toothbrush. I thought, hey, if I could learn so much in so little time, maybe just maybe, life might get back to the way it was before.
Embrace the new normal
Did life get back to the way it was? No. It did not. It took another two years of learning and practice, but I slowly mastered skill after skill. I trained my inner dialogue to help rather than hinder. I just learned how to pour a cup of coffee. That's a win! I just signed up to learn Braille. Win!
Gradually, the pile of small victories turned into a mountain of accomplishments, and I forged ahead doing the things I wanted to do, at every turn thinking of it as a win. Walking the dog became a win. Working out became a win. I had turned into a winning machine! My life wasn't the way it was before. It was better.
Focus on the work ahead
With so many wins and successes under my belt, I found the energy to keep challenging myself. I built a tactile Rubik's Cube and solved it! I learned to play the guitar. If you keep yourself busy, you don't think of your challenges as obstructions. I know you've probably got your hand raised, ready to ask, "But, you said life has a way of throwing bad stuff at me?" First of all, it's very polite of you, but no need to raise your hand. I'm blind. (Thank you - I'll be here all week, folks!)
I'm not saying you have to avoid bad situations. I'm saying you should have a plan for handling them and turning them into wins. This is the work ahead. I left Spectrios with a long list of tasks. I forced myself to forget about the distant future and zero in on what I could do now. Imagine the loftiest goal you've ever had. Now center down and realize that every small step you take gets you closer to that goal.
Shape your reactions
I can't control my emotions, but I can control how I react. You can too. When I was deep into learning Tom Petty's Free Fallin' on the guitar, I'd miss a chord here and there and get so frustrated! I sighed. I frowned. Then, I took a breath. I let the frustration evaporate and then do you know what I did? I subjected my loved ones to yet another Free Fallin' attempt. I just kept playing.
I trained myself to make a conscious effort to modulate my reactions. The world is complicated. There's already a lot of bad stuff. I vow to resist the temptation to make it worse.
Flex your good memory muscles
Optimism takes practice. One of the best ways to do this is to reinforce memories of your accomplishments. I like to pretend I'm giving myself an annual performance review, except I don't list any bad feedback. Instead, I focus on all the growth I've had in the last year. Simple things like emptied the dishwasher before I went to bed most nights count. I'll include any new places I've been, books I've read (Thanks, Talking Books!), shows I've watched (Thanks, descriptive audio!), or new recipes I've made. Make a list of the good stuff. You'll realize just how awesome you are!
Going blind forced me to rediscover optimism and create techniques to infuse it in everything I do. This has helped keep the darkness at bay and taught me to push myself to grow. It's been a decade since I lost my sight, and just recently I re-learned how to ride a bike. My daughter and I biked along a nature trail! Win!
Six final points:

  *   When life brings bad news, you can choose to be angry and devastated or to look for the bright spots and move toward them.
  *   When you push through the hard times, there are always better times on the other side.
  *   Surviving big setbacks and failures makes failure feel okay. And that is a superpower.
  *   Overcoming huge challenges shows you how adaptable the human brain is and teaches you that you can accomplish just about anything. It also makes you more curious and eager to continually learn.
  *   Being an optimist and spreading optimism really does help make the world a better place.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbf-l_nfbnet.org/attachments/20230112/582dbf4a/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 36424 bytes
Desc: image002.jpg
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbf-l_nfbnet.org/attachments/20230112/582dbf4a/attachment.jpg>