Category: Everyday Life

Happiness as an attitude

youshouldgoanyway

You’d expect that as your body slowly loses strength that your general level of happiness would dissipate as well. I have found the opposite to be true and believe it has a lot to do with attitude.

For some people, attitude is a choice. For others it is something that gradually forms. For me I think it was a combination of both. I definitely went through a phase where I was not happy about having muscular dystrophy. This state of unhappiness stemmed from a combination of uncertainty, fear, and general frustration. There was no internet back then so I didn’t know what to expect. I was afraid that if my friends found out that they wouldn’t want to be friends with me anymore. And I was frustrated that I was always the slowest runner and not able to do physically do things the same way the other kids were doing.

But one thing I seemed to always have going for me is my attitude. Even though I was the slowest runner, I still ran. Even though I was horrible at jumping, I still jumped. I played basketball until 8th grade and kept trying despite my difficulties. I also loved and still love tennis. I would hit a tennis ball against whatever garage door I could find. I play tennis against my dad the day after my first muscle biopsy, and beat him. No matter what, I still tried.

After doing this for a while my mind started to focus more on what I could do than what I couldn’t. This is the gradual change I am referring to. I spent my time doing things I could do instead of sitting around moping because there was something I couldn’t do. Focusing on the positive things led my mind to a state of happiness.

I lived in this state for many years. I wasn’t consciously deciding to be happy but it was happening anyway. Finally at age 32 I decided to travel to play wheelchair tennis tournaments. I packed up or sold many of my things in Hawaii and decided to spend at least six months traveling the U.S. and living in hotels or with family. The very first day of my trip I was driving from Atlanta to Pensacola, exhausted from my overnight flight but extremely excited. I couldn’t believe I was driving to a tennis tournament I was going to play in. I said it out loud. “I CAN’T BELIEVE I AM DRIVING TO A TENNIS TOURNAMENT!” I didn’t believe it. It was an extremely happy moment.

That’s when I decided that I had control over my happiness. I had made this tennis trip happen because I kept on trying. It made me happy. Therefore I can always find a way to be happy no matter what the circumstances.

And that was it. For the last several years my baseline level of happiness is higher than ever. I get more enjoyment out of the things I do than ever. It even makes me happy when someone looks at me and assumes I’m not happy. That means I’m beating muscular dystrophy, at least mentally. And let’s face it, your brain ultimately makes you happy or sad.

So you might as well choose to be happy.

Using the bus for the first time in a wheelchair

youshouldgoanyway

I didn’t ride a bus regularly until I finally got frustrated with traffic in Hawaii and decided to give it a try. The day I realized it was taking me 50 minutes to drive six miles and that my wheelchair could go faster than that was the day I decided to ship my truck to the mainland US and at least get some reading done on the bus while stuck in traffic.

Fortunately, the bus system in Hawaii is pretty good so I was confident I could make it work. However, that didn’t make it any less nerve wracking the first time I tried it.

Shortly after I put the truck on the boat, I had a tennis tournament on the weekend and that Saturday morning was my first adventure on the bus. I wondered – How did the ramp work? Would the driver hear me when I need to get off the bus? Will my chair fit? Where do I even catch the bus?

The first step was the most frustrating (at the time) and I can see how most people are immediately turned off to using the bus. The route maps are all separate and no one bus ever seems to go exactly where you want it to go. So I spent at least a couple hours trying to open up maps online and figure out which bus to get where. Finally I decided to look for the easiest, but not necessarily the fastest route. After all, I could figure out the maps later. This time I just needed to get where I needed to go. If I left early enough, it really wouldn’t matter. Of course now I find Google Transit to be incredibly useful.

Fortunately, Saturday morning was a good time to try this all out since few people were up and about at the time I needed to get on board.

I got out to the stop at least 20 minutes before I needed to and sat there waiting. Finally I saw the “A” bus coming down the road. With $2 in hand, I prepared to board. The driver saw me and immediately signaled something to the people on board. I saw a few people get up from the front seating area and move to different seats. The driver opened the door, lowered the ramp, and said “Hello.” I rolled on and with all the faces and eyes on me, I followed the driver down the aisle. He flipped up a few seats and I turned around and backed into the space.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

I told him where as he started to strap in my chair.

He returned to his seat and started driving.

That was it.

It was around this time that I realized that the things I was doing with my chair were not groundbreaking. People in chairs had done them before. It was just new to me. The bus drivers were trained to handle wheelchair riders. I didn’t have to tell the driver anything new.

This is one of the things I always have to remind myself – that even if it’s new to me, it’s likely not new to the people who are going to help me.