Over a decade ago, I shared an office with The Mentor. He was a little older and much wiser and had no problem making his opinions on life and my life in particular be known.
The Mentor was from the Blue state of Michigan while I was from the Red state of Arizona. At the time, he would say things like, “Republicans are the best marketers in the world. What they are selling is the illusion that the common man can actually become rich and therefor, when they do become rich, they will have wished they voted Republican so their taxes would have been lower. But sadly, it’s all just an illusion. The rich get richer and the poor keep on hoping, but nothing changes.”
I would disagree vehemently. We worked. We argued. This went on for three months until we both simultaneously found better jobs and quit. No longer compelled to physically sit next to each other, strangely, we stayed in touch. Months would go by and then one or the other would call out of the blue. I got older. I had children. We argued less and agreed more.
I vividly remember one random debate from that Winter of 2001. The Mentor asked to see a picture of my wife. I showed him.
“You know, you’re very lucky you’re tall. You’re entire perspective on life has been shaped by winning this genetic lottery.”
“Come again?”
“No, seriously you’re roughly three standard deviations above the mean in height. You probably won’t acknowledge this, but people respond to you differently because you of this completely arbitrary physical quality. It says nothing about your intelligence, leadership, or who you are as a person. However, your earning potential is much higher and women find you much more attractive than you really are.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Look at your wife. She is far better looking than you are. The only reason she found you initially attractive is because the primitive part of the female brain is still hard wired to look for a protector.”
“So I’m ugly, but my wife is hot? I think I can live with that.”
At the time, I was willing to laugh it off. It was just another one of The Mentor’s attempts to press my buttons and get a rise out of me. Doors were not magically opened for me because I was above average height. That was ridiculous. Except... The Mentor was right. About everything.
A few months later, after we had both gone our separate ways, I completely tore my ACL, damaged my meniscus, and sprained the MCL in my right knee. I wish there were a more dramatic story as to how I did it, but the facts of the matter was that I was an aging jock who tried to do a wicked crossover on the basketball court. The only person fooled by my maneuver was my own body which complained mightily.
I was faced with the prospect of surgery and several months of intensive physical therapy. I was undaunted and felt like I would bounce back just fine. Years of weight training had built strong quadriceps and this would aid me in my recover, I thought. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
I went into surgery with high hopes and began physical therapy shortly after. One month into my recovery, others who had the same procedure at the same time were walking. I could barely get my right leg to function.
I came to therapy and received hot and cold treatment. My knee was massaged. My leg was stretched. I began basic exercises. At one point, my physical therapist had me lay on a table on my back. He asked my to lift my right leg in the air. The request was as baffling to me at the time as being asked to lift a pencil off the desk using only my mind. I had absolutely no idea how to make my leg move.
I was uncomfortable being dependant on other people. My inability to drive myself, to walk, or perform very basic tasks eroded some of my confidence. Instead of standing at my full height with my shoulders back, I slumped and avoided eye contact. People started to treat me differently. Not that I expected a red carpet rolled out for me, but I had doors literally shut in my face as I tried to hobble through on my crutches. It was a difficult time.
As I was coming to grips with my situation, I was at work when I saw a guy my age, height, and build on crutches. As he passed by my office we nodded at each other as if to say, “Hey big man, I see you are on crutches too.”
As he hopped away, I noticed something. Where I was wearing a brace that went from my ankle to my hip, my new friend was completely missing his right leg from the point below the middle of his thigh. I got hit by a little perspective. Although my rehabilitation was difficult, my set back was temporary. My friend’s was permanent.
The next week, I was at a social work function in downtown Seattle. I had just arrived and managed to get to the second floor and catch up with some co-workers. I was out of breath from walking and clumsily working my way up the stairs.
A few minutes later, my friend arrived. He took one look at the stairs that took my five minutes to complete and proceeded to do one of the most impressive and athletic feats I have ever witnessed. He threw his crutches to the middle landing of the stairs with precision accuracy and then jumped off of one foot (his only foot) and landed three stairs up from his launch point. Without hesitation, he continued to fly, three stairs at a time, to the landing point next to his crutches. In one fell swoop; he reached down grabbed the crutches and threw them again to the top of the stairs. Without a pause to catch his breath, he then continued to fly/jump off of one leg until he was at the top of the stairs.
He grabbed his crutches and approached me.
“That was amazing,” I gushed.
My friend simply shrugged and said, “You get used to it.”
“Well, if I wasn’t tired before, that made me tired just watching it. I had to park half a mile away from here. I was really wishing I had a handicapped spot.”
“My doctor keeps trying to give me one. I think that handicapped spots should really go to people who actually need them.”
In that single moment, I realized that my friend refused to see himself as handicapped. He told me more about himself and his situation. He was diagnosed with cancer at the age of fourteen and had most of his right leg amputated. His leg was gone, but so was his cancer. Instead of mourning the loss of his leg, he celebrated the new found chance at life. He had played sports, gone to college, married, and had children. His attitude was an absolute inspiration to me.
I approached my physical therapy with a different mindset. I forgave my body for not recovering as quickly as I had unreasonably expected it to. I accepted that my rehab experience would be different from everyone else’s. I attacked physical therapy and pushed myself harder. I choked back fear and pain and kept remembering that this moment was temporary and that I would make a full recovery.
My attitude improved, but there were no miracles. Slowly, surely functionality returned to my leg. I wore a smaller brace and eventually decided to give up my crutches.
My first outing without crutches, I went to Target to purchase “Zoolander” on DVD. I went to the cashier to pay when I started to realize I picked the wrong line. The woman in front of me was in an electric scooter, apparently unable to walk. She had a basket full of goods but seemingly no ability to pay for any of them. One by one, she put items back until her credit card was accepted.
Patience has never been my strong suit, but standing there waiting for an uncertain amount of time while still unsure how to spread my weight between my right and left legs was agony. Eventually, I made my purchase and limped towards the car in time to see the woman get out of the electric scooter and walk with seeming ease towards her car. Parked in a handicapped spot.
The woman who used an electric scooter and parked in a handicapped spot without showing any symptoms of being disabled had allowed herself to be victimized. Before I met my friend, it was the path I was starting to head down.
I could not help but be thankful for having met my friend who had never told me to stop seeing myself as handicapped, but showed me by example. By his actions. By his attitude. I was grateful for having met him when I needed someone to show me how to be positive. Without saying it, he let me know my situation was temporary and could have been much worse.
As my attitude towards my condition improved and my health returned, I started to carry myself differently. It was as if I had grown four inches overnight. My posture improved. I made eye contact again. People started treating me differently. The Mentor was right, as always.
The Mentor was from the Blue state of Michigan while I was from the Red state of Arizona. At the time, he would say things like, “Republicans are the best marketers in the world. What they are selling is the illusion that the common man can actually become rich and therefor, when they do become rich, they will have wished they voted Republican so their taxes would have been lower. But sadly, it’s all just an illusion. The rich get richer and the poor keep on hoping, but nothing changes.”
I would disagree vehemently. We worked. We argued. This went on for three months until we both simultaneously found better jobs and quit. No longer compelled to physically sit next to each other, strangely, we stayed in touch. Months would go by and then one or the other would call out of the blue. I got older. I had children. We argued less and agreed more.
I vividly remember one random debate from that Winter of 2001. The Mentor asked to see a picture of my wife. I showed him.
“You know, you’re very lucky you’re tall. You’re entire perspective on life has been shaped by winning this genetic lottery.”
“Come again?”
“No, seriously you’re roughly three standard deviations above the mean in height. You probably won’t acknowledge this, but people respond to you differently because you of this completely arbitrary physical quality. It says nothing about your intelligence, leadership, or who you are as a person. However, your earning potential is much higher and women find you much more attractive than you really are.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Look at your wife. She is far better looking than you are. The only reason she found you initially attractive is because the primitive part of the female brain is still hard wired to look for a protector.”
“So I’m ugly, but my wife is hot? I think I can live with that.”
At the time, I was willing to laugh it off. It was just another one of The Mentor’s attempts to press my buttons and get a rise out of me. Doors were not magically opened for me because I was above average height. That was ridiculous. Except... The Mentor was right. About everything.
A few months later, after we had both gone our separate ways, I completely tore my ACL, damaged my meniscus, and sprained the MCL in my right knee. I wish there were a more dramatic story as to how I did it, but the facts of the matter was that I was an aging jock who tried to do a wicked crossover on the basketball court. The only person fooled by my maneuver was my own body which complained mightily.
I was faced with the prospect of surgery and several months of intensive physical therapy. I was undaunted and felt like I would bounce back just fine. Years of weight training had built strong quadriceps and this would aid me in my recover, I thought. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
I went into surgery with high hopes and began physical therapy shortly after. One month into my recovery, others who had the same procedure at the same time were walking. I could barely get my right leg to function.
I came to therapy and received hot and cold treatment. My knee was massaged. My leg was stretched. I began basic exercises. At one point, my physical therapist had me lay on a table on my back. He asked my to lift my right leg in the air. The request was as baffling to me at the time as being asked to lift a pencil off the desk using only my mind. I had absolutely no idea how to make my leg move.
I was uncomfortable being dependant on other people. My inability to drive myself, to walk, or perform very basic tasks eroded some of my confidence. Instead of standing at my full height with my shoulders back, I slumped and avoided eye contact. People started to treat me differently. Not that I expected a red carpet rolled out for me, but I had doors literally shut in my face as I tried to hobble through on my crutches. It was a difficult time.
As I was coming to grips with my situation, I was at work when I saw a guy my age, height, and build on crutches. As he passed by my office we nodded at each other as if to say, “Hey big man, I see you are on crutches too.”
As he hopped away, I noticed something. Where I was wearing a brace that went from my ankle to my hip, my new friend was completely missing his right leg from the point below the middle of his thigh. I got hit by a little perspective. Although my rehabilitation was difficult, my set back was temporary. My friend’s was permanent.
The next week, I was at a social work function in downtown Seattle. I had just arrived and managed to get to the second floor and catch up with some co-workers. I was out of breath from walking and clumsily working my way up the stairs.
A few minutes later, my friend arrived. He took one look at the stairs that took my five minutes to complete and proceeded to do one of the most impressive and athletic feats I have ever witnessed. He threw his crutches to the middle landing of the stairs with precision accuracy and then jumped off of one foot (his only foot) and landed three stairs up from his launch point. Without hesitation, he continued to fly, three stairs at a time, to the landing point next to his crutches. In one fell swoop; he reached down grabbed the crutches and threw them again to the top of the stairs. Without a pause to catch his breath, he then continued to fly/jump off of one leg until he was at the top of the stairs.
He grabbed his crutches and approached me.
“That was amazing,” I gushed.
My friend simply shrugged and said, “You get used to it.”
“Well, if I wasn’t tired before, that made me tired just watching it. I had to park half a mile away from here. I was really wishing I had a handicapped spot.”
“My doctor keeps trying to give me one. I think that handicapped spots should really go to people who actually need them.”
In that single moment, I realized that my friend refused to see himself as handicapped. He told me more about himself and his situation. He was diagnosed with cancer at the age of fourteen and had most of his right leg amputated. His leg was gone, but so was his cancer. Instead of mourning the loss of his leg, he celebrated the new found chance at life. He had played sports, gone to college, married, and had children. His attitude was an absolute inspiration to me.
I approached my physical therapy with a different mindset. I forgave my body for not recovering as quickly as I had unreasonably expected it to. I accepted that my rehab experience would be different from everyone else’s. I attacked physical therapy and pushed myself harder. I choked back fear and pain and kept remembering that this moment was temporary and that I would make a full recovery.
My attitude improved, but there were no miracles. Slowly, surely functionality returned to my leg. I wore a smaller brace and eventually decided to give up my crutches.
My first outing without crutches, I went to Target to purchase “Zoolander” on DVD. I went to the cashier to pay when I started to realize I picked the wrong line. The woman in front of me was in an electric scooter, apparently unable to walk. She had a basket full of goods but seemingly no ability to pay for any of them. One by one, she put items back until her credit card was accepted.
Patience has never been my strong suit, but standing there waiting for an uncertain amount of time while still unsure how to spread my weight between my right and left legs was agony. Eventually, I made my purchase and limped towards the car in time to see the woman get out of the electric scooter and walk with seeming ease towards her car. Parked in a handicapped spot.
The woman who used an electric scooter and parked in a handicapped spot without showing any symptoms of being disabled had allowed herself to be victimized. Before I met my friend, it was the path I was starting to head down.
I could not help but be thankful for having met my friend who had never told me to stop seeing myself as handicapped, but showed me by example. By his actions. By his attitude. I was grateful for having met him when I needed someone to show me how to be positive. Without saying it, he let me know my situation was temporary and could have been much worse.
As my attitude towards my condition improved and my health returned, I started to carry myself differently. It was as if I had grown four inches overnight. My posture improved. I made eye contact again. People started treating me differently. The Mentor was right, as always.
