Battling Blindness

It’s hard to spend much time out in public without seeing someone struggling with a disability. Whether it’s a physical handicap like paralysis in an appendage or a mental limitation such as a chromosomal disorder, when I experience someone struggling with a disability, there is a significant emotional response and I can feel an immediate tug at my heart. I also tend to feel helplessness in not being able to relieve that person of their struggle. I wish I had a cure.

I remember a very specific time when I was about three or four years old at a basketball game. The game had ended and there was a boy just a few years older than me coming down the steps from above me using a cane. But instead of using the cane to brace his weight, he was moving it back and forth, gently tapping the steps as he came down. “What is he doing with that stick?” I asked my mom. “He is using that cane to feel his way down the steps,” She answered. “That boy is blind, Chad.”

That last phrase cut me to my soul. Even as I write this, three and a half decades later, I still vividly remember that moment and the flood of emotions that overcame me. I was devastated for that boy. My heart was crushed to think of him going through life without sight, vulnerable and not being able to experience life the way I could. I realized he had been sitting behind me for the last couple hours and hadn’t been able to see a second of the game.

Tragically, there’s a disability that I believe is more debilitating than any of these. Pessimism and negativity cause a blindness far more devastating than losing sight. The “doom and gloom” perspective afflicting so many people cause them to be blinded to all the good around them and they miss the beauty in their lives because ugliness has taken over their vision. They are crippled by focusing on only what is going poorly, and the blessings slip by unnoticed. They miss the game being played out before them, never fully experiencing the wonderful performances displayed in front of their veiled minds.

However, there is a bright spot here. While there may not be a cure for many physical and mental disabilities, pessimism and negativity are completely treatable. With regular doses of gratitude – being intentionally thankful for all the good in your life – the doom and gloom will start to melt away. Start each day with gratitude and keep it up throughout the day. Unlike other medications, this one is impossible to overdose, but I dare you to try.

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