[Travelandtourism] Travel Independence how do we feel about this, please read all of the e-mail

[Julie J.]

I've read the "Nature of Independence" several times over the years.  I 
think I took away a slightly different perspective on it than others here.

Yes, it's important for us to accept help gracefully, but I also think 
it's important for us to refuse help gracefully when we feel that is the 
better course of action.  I think that sometimes it's more about where 
we are with our blindness than it is about how we look to the public. An 
example was given about a woman who spent several minutes finding a 
door., refusing help.  At first glance it may seem that she chose 
wrongly, but I'm not sure.  First it isn't up to anyone but the 
individual to make that decision.  Second she may have been at a place 
in her life where she needed to figure out where the door was for 
herself.  How will she learn without making mistakes?  Looking silly for 
five minutes is a small price to pay to learn a valuable skill that will 
serve her well in the future.  I do agree that rudeness in refusing help 
is inappropriate, although sometimes even a polite refusal is taken badly.

I think in order to be truly comfortable with our blindness and 
accepting help, we need to go through the first two phases of 
development in the "nature of Independence".  We have to experience 
feelings of helplessness in order to gain the desire to learn new ways 
of doing things for ourselves.  then we have to practice those skills 
until they become second nature.  We have to prove to ourselves in our 
hearts that we can in fact compete with our peers both sighted and blind 
on terms of equality.  Once we get to that point accepting help becomes 
easier because there isn't the emotional baggage to accompany it.  In 
the beginning, the helpless stage, I think we resent needing help.  We 
know we don't have the skills or know how to accomplish the task.  
Accepting help then is reinforcing that we can't do something 
ourselves.  In the second stage of fierce  independence, we have 
difficulty accepting help because it infringes on our pride.  In the 
third stage, true independence, we can accept or not accept help as we 
see fit without guilt or a blow to our pride because we know in our 
hearts that we are independent.  We know that we are a whole person 
regardless of whether or not we choose to accept help.

I'd ask that we not judge each other so harshly on whether or not we 
choose to accept help and that we are gentle with those who we perceive 
as having less skills.  None of us is perfect and we all had to begin 
somewhere.

Julie