The Real Missions

Why Disabled People exists

By John The Blindcaster

Eleven years ago, I lost my sight, on both eyes, due to a gunshot wound to my temple, that severed my optic nerves. Eventually, the Doctor declared irreparable optic nerves constituting the perpetual and total bilateral loss of my vision. Naturally, I succumbed to depression and all those found in the stages of loss, and, admittedly, I opted to commit suicide because of the tragic effect to my life. Well, not only my life, but more so, in my life’s career, responsibilities and ambitions.

And so, my life as a blind person started. It was a very rough and unfamiliar road, but I have to take it, I can’t complain, because its now my reality. Along the way, realizations sets in. during the first few years, I got sick of those people saying this belief laiden phrase, including family, friends and others that I met through disability conventions and trainings. Guess what those words were? “you are alive because you still have a mission”. At first, it felt good because it’s a form of spiritual encouragement, but in the long run, its kind of repetitive and stereotype that most person will just say to someone who encountered loss or tragedy. Its like a “no choice” phrase to say. You might judge me as an engrate, but try to step in my shoes, hearing these words over and over again, everytime I meet new people or everytime there is family or class reunions.

Come to think of it, what is, or, are the mission/s? Like I’ve mentioned, I had a lot of realizations during the course of my blind life. Part of it is seeing, so to speak, the real mission I have to accomplish, and its not for me, but for others.

Here we go. Like the dialogue in the Mission Impossible films, “your mission, should you choose to accept” are the following.

#3 Barred to Judge

The premise of this mission is more on the physical aspect. It is but a natural behaviour of a normal person, when sighting a pretty girl or handsome guy, there’s this feeling of gladness for looking upon an attractive view, like you get for seeing a beautiful landscape of land or a nice bluish and cloudless skies. Inversely, when looking at an ugly face, say, a face with a crooked long nose, scarred cheeks, half open eyes and rotten teeth, the reaction is definitely sad or gloomy.

This physical judgment bears no weight for the totally blind people. Pretty or not, we all look upon any person as he or she is. We do not go beyond what his or her voice sounds. Unless of course, if what’s in front of us starts to utter discriminating words or profanities, then, that’s the time we can choose between pretty and ugly. Well, this is not an absolute thought process of all the blind people, because other vision impaired still prefers to be with a beautiful person, complete with all the pretty face. I can’t debate on that, blind people are sstill humans, with all the desires and needs. I’m just looking at this as someone who wants to grab attention for wearing a pretty dress or a cool jacket, you know, all those aesthetics things, something to brag about.

Anyways, the bottomline here is that being judgmental is no longer a great deal for a blind person to waste precious time.

#2 Spread the Patience

Here in the Philippines, everytime I get to join any disability conferences, conventions or trainings, patience is my virtue. Why? Because I need to face the battle of time delays, unreadiness of the hosts or trainors, the tardiness of guest speakers and their very very long speeches that goes array even to the point of telling the story of the history of disability in the world and not relevant with the topics of the event.

I have learned to elongate the bands of my patience in my blind life through my experiences, I proudly share to my children, my nephews and nieces, and to the young blind people I meet. The value of patience is one of the most inexpensive gift that I can give to anyone and everyone.

Of course, I’m not solely pertaining to experiences I had with different events, the great deal of patience in my life are extracted from me through my day to day activities, especially at home. I have learned to live with a great deal of patience living with my sister, nephew and our old helper/nanny. These family members were not accustomed living with a blind person and we all had lots of adjustments at home. Such adjustment period mostly happened in the first 5 years of my blindness. Just a sample, there’s this door that separates our living room from our dining room, and I always tell everyone in the house to, either keep the door totally close or totally open, so that I will not bang my face on the door’s edges if its half open. Guess what? They completely forget this simple task, and it took a very long while for them to consistently do as I ask of them. It was very hard for all of us in the family, but we made it through.

The bottomline, spread the virtue of patience to anyone and everyone. Not only within the family, but also within the community.

#1 Plant the seed of Humility

If given the chance to summarize all the teachings of Jesus Christ, I can say only 2 words, “Be Humble”. All throughout the Gospels, The Lord Jesus shown, encourages, profess and empower all those who were listening to His teachings to be humble, together with love, of course.

In a quiet way, when a person see, say a blind person with a white cane, crossing a street, such person will try to catch up and ask the blind person if he/she needs help to cross the street, and this helpful person will even ask for other things the blind person needs. That willful assistance is a symptom of humility within. Its this sudden jolt of electricity that propels one to extend a helping heart.

Of course there are certain exemptions, because others will feel shame and pride whenever they see disabled people, and we can’t do anything about them but to pray they may catch the virus of humility. And, the bottomline, being humble is more gratifying than having more likes and shares on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram.

We all have our mission. We may never get a written memo about it or a classified folder containing them, but surely, we have are missions in our lives, whether we are disabled or complete. Any disabled person are enabled by these missions and our day to day lives will slowly reveal these things.

God bless everyone. Be safe! Be healthy! And Be wise!