Thoughts on Disabilities.....

I'm taking a wonderful class this semester entitled Inclusive Recreation. It is a great class all about why and how to include people with disabilities in recreation.                                            But what qualifies as a disability?? According to the ADA, an individual with a disability is a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities (such as walking, breathing, or learning), has a record of such an impairment, or is regarded as having such an impairment.            That's pretty vague if you ask me. I mean, regarded as having a disability? So if I say my child has a learning disability, he or she does? Hmmm...well, I guess that's a form of self-fulfilling prophesy for ya.

Why does a law have to regulate what constitutes as a disability and what does not?          And what exactly is a disability for that matter? The simple fact that someone cannot do something like a "normal person" would?                                 I don't believe it.  What the heck is "normal" anyways? A social norm or standard? The average way of doing things?  Some of what the ADA calls 'a disability' is no more than a different way of doing something.
             For instance, my professor, Brother Barney, is in a wheelchair. Looking at him, I would never associate him with the word "disabled." There's just no way.
   He's a happy guy with a wife and kids.
He has dreams and goals, and he works towards them to accomplish them.
          He's working on his PhD and he loves to bike across the country.
     He's a fit guy who's made the best of his situation.
                                               He can do whatever he wants.
And he's in a wheelchair. So what?! He rolls where ever he goes instead of walking? When he travels via wheeled vehicle (car), he takes his wheels with him where ever he goes instead of leaving them out in the parking lot?
                        No, that, to me, is no disability whatsoever.

Maybe it's a more individual thing? We all have our strengths and our weaknesses and we all have our different ways of doing things. We all have our differing levels of potential in certain areas (in this life). We can all choose to live up to our potential, or be that bum who could have bee.            Granted, people with disabilities don't often choose to be that way (in a wheelchair, without eyesight, with limited motor skills, etc), but they can choose what to do with their situation. If they mope around, feeling sorry for themselves and not going anywhere in life, they've let their situation control them, and that is a disability in my mind; they let themselves become disabled. If they focus on what they cannot do, what they cannot accomplish, and where they cannot go in life, where can they ever go?
            Furthermore, I do not think a disability is limited only to the physical or mental spectrums as the ADA has it, but can be emotional, social, and spiritual as well. We can all be disabled if we submit to the plentiful cannot's in our lives.

Why don't we be abled and not disabled. I believe it's a choice; a choice to overcome our circumstances, a choice to focus on what we can do, a choice to live and not just exist. It's your choice to make just as it's mine. The great thing is, we can make that choice everyday.