Already? Yeah, you know I really didn’t love the whole “If I can do it”, thing when I started. But I felt like writing and that’s what popped into my head at the time. But I have to admit, it bugs me. It really really bugs me.
You see, I’d intended to talk about some struggles I’d touched on in earlier posts and how they kept me from going outside and having the experiences that I wanted to have, and then talk about the steps I’d taken to overcome the obstacles. You know, sort of in the hopes that others may be inspired to take the same steps in their own lives. Like isn’t it neat when someone almost drowns, and then years later manages to get over that? I think things like this can be empowering.
However, I don’t find the phrase, “If I can do it, so can you”, empowering in the slightest. To me it almost screams, “What’s wrong with you? Look at all this stuff I can do and you’re still on the couch!” Now I know that’s not how I intended it in the slightest, but a total stranger may not. Every person has a different set of abilities. Just because I can do something, doesn’t mean the next person can. And just because someone else can do something, doesn’t mean I can. Part of what I do at work is helping adults with disabilities do the absolute best that they can with the abilities they’ve got. Let me tell ya though, if there’s something that they want to do that they just can’t seem to accomplish, I’ll bust my butt to help make it happen.
That makes me think of a time I was lucky enough to take one of my guys kayaking. It took a few people and a lot of effort, but to see someone who’s bound to a wheelchair paddling around in a kayak, well… I’m sure you can imagine. It’s pretty darn awesome.
So when I said ‘If I can do it, so can you’, to me that means that we all take different steps to get to the same outcomes. But, I really just don’t like the way it sounds. I was thinking of ‘Just go outside’, or something like that. But it seems that URL is taken.
So for now I’m back to pondering a better outcome for this blog 🙂
ETA: I think I got one!
Go Outside 