Motivation by comparison is a dynamic form of motivation which can totally transform our attitude of mind. It is used much too rarely. It is so powerful it could and perhaps should be used every day as a part of a morning ritual of preparation for the day ahead.

Every day we should thank God or the Universe that we are not blind or disabled in some other way (unless of course we are blind). We should be motivated by comparing our lot with that of the blind, sick and disabled.

Most of us think about this occasionally. I am suggesting in this article that we should systematically think about this every single day of our lives especially early in the morning.

When we feel sorry for ourselves because we are faced with some problem or other, let’s just think for a few moments about how we would deal with the problem if we were blind.

I have some official and confusing documents to sort out tomorrow. I am not looking forward to this but if I were blind, it would take me twice as long to get up for a start. I would also have the thought of another day without sight weighing me down and making me feel tired before the day gets going.

I would then (unless I had special technology) have to ask someone to read the documents over to me and would then have to ask someone to write the reply for me when I had thought over the problems.

This might involve paying someone to do this or waiting for a friend or relative to have the time to help me. It might take several hours if not days to sort out the problem. Without having to do all this, the problem could be sorted out within an hour or two at the most.

If I were paralysed, I would also need to rely on help and would also have to fight all the problems of poor health that immobility encourages.

I should find myself motivated by the comparisons above. Life is so much easier for me that I should be thoroughly ashamed of any self pity or lack of motivation.

I watched a tribute on the BBC1 Program ‘Breakfast with Frost’ this morning (Sunday October 17th 2004) to Christopher Reeve who died last week

Sir David Frost started by saying that Christopher Reeve had been a guest on his show several times. He had always been inspirational.

David Frost continued: “The Superman in film became a real life superman when he refused to let his paralysis deter him in his fight to promote stem cell research “

In fact, Christopher Reeve, since his fall from his horse in 1995, had promoted the cause of spinal cord injury research with determination and energy. He had brought hope to many spinal injury victims including himself.

Frost decided to end this morning’s program with a tribute to Christopher Reeve by showing Christopher’s answer to a key question.

David Frost asked him how he faced up to hopelessness and bleakness. Christopher’s reply has many great lessons to teach us:

“The way out is to pick something very proactive, very constructive. Think of something that needs doing – some cause – something that will take you forward if you think about it.

So I just get busy with that and I am back in shape. It takes will power but fortunately I was an actor for 28 years and as an actor you get very used to rejection.

You might get one part out of twenty auditions and so I think the discipline of being an actor for all those years has really helped me because you still have to believe in yourself. And I believe in what is happening in the research.

With sheer will power you can keep your body in shape.

This is a big test, a big, big test but fortunately I have tremendous help from my family and friends and staff and we’ll go forward and get out of this.”

I am not sure if the last few words were actually what he said as they were a little indistinct but his attitude was mainly one of hope for the future.

Christopher used his work to lift any depression he might be feeling. He saw the promotion of medical research as a worthwhile cause. Just getting down to work promoting it put him back on track.

He also acknowledged the help of friends, family and staff in keeping him going. Gratitude is a great motivator and it opens the mind to expect and receive help from the universe.

I was surprised that he linked discipline with being an actor but when you think about it discipline is all about keeping going and doing whatever needs doing even when you feel disappointed and as if you are getting nowhere.

An actor must feel down and think about giving up every time they are rejected at an audition. If they keep attending auditions they have discipline.

Christopher kept going after his accident by calling on his history of self-discipline and will power. This kept him doing whatever exercise he thought might help.

The other thing that keeps an actor going is belief in himself or herself. After his fall from his horse, Christopher’s belief in medical research kept him promoting the research to the general public.

If he could show this kind of discipline, will power and belief in the face of the big, big tests he faced surely we can show the same qualities in the face of the much smaller tests that we face.

If he had lived in the UK, he would probably have been knighted Sir Christopher Reeve both for his films and his work to relieve suffering. Americans have honoured and will honour him in their own way.

A little time spent comparing ourselves with Christopher Reeve should provide us with an endless source of motivation in the future. Motivation by comparison works.

John Watson owns a martial arts school in Kent, UK. He has retired from teaching in London secondary schools after 33 years of teaching life skills and religious education. Several rare motivational and self help books are available there including books by John Watson and Stuart Goldsmith. His website is at http://www.motivationtoday.com.

He’s too busy being a single father to two sons, working as general manager of sales and marketing for an adaptive mobility company, speaking at schools, and playing goaltender for the U.S. sled hockey national team.

Brandon’s life changed on September 10, 2002. He was on a ladder trimming a tree when he fell 15 feet to the driveway, landing flat on his back. The fall caused burst fractures in several vertebrae, resulting in paraplegia. In the months of recovery and rehabilitation that followed, Brandon realized giving up wasn’t an option; his two boys, 11-year-old Scott and six-year-old Trevor, depended on him.

“If I couldn’t find the strength within myself to recover, I knew I must do it for them,” Brandon recalls. “They needed their father back to as close to normal as possible, and quick.”

Following the accident, Brandon, a native of St. Louis, was sent to DePaul Hospital, where neurosurgeon Dr. Danial Scodary implanted titanium rods in his spine. He was then transferred to St. Johns Mercy for more surgery and rehabilitation. After a month of rehab, Brandon underwent five more months of out-patient therapy three times a week. He has developed a close relationship with his doctors, particularly Scodary.

“I owe a lot to him,” Brandon says. “He has been a godsend to myself and my family.”

Less than a month after his injury, Brandon, who had played roller blade hockey for years, was introduced to sled hockey by his physical therapist, Kathy Griffith. Invented at a rehabilitation center in Sweden in the 1960’s, sled hockey became a Paralympic sport in the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer. Players sit in specially designed sleds placed on top of two hockey skate blades, and the puck must be passed underneath the sled.

After watching the U.S. Paralympic team play a game, Brandon met several of the players, and was deeply moved by the experience.

“It was there that I created a new cast of heroes,” he says. “Here was a bunch of guys that have all overcome horrible injuries of their own, and went on to play for their country and win a gold medal in Salt Lake City at the 2002 Paralympics.”

Once he was cleared by his doctors, Brandon played one season for a team called the RIC Blackhawks before being invited to the U.S. Team tryouts this past August in Colorado Springs. After five days of tryouts, he made the team as a goaltender.

But other challenges lay ahead. When Brandon discovered that his boys were being ridiculed at school because of his wheelchair, he realized how important it was to show others that disabled people could lead productive lives. He began speaking at grade schools, demonstrating how he uses his wheelchair to go up and down stairs, play sports, and do many of the things everyone else does, with some modifications. He shows kids his Ford pickup equipped with a special seat, wheelchair lift, and remote control power topper.

Brandon is amazed at how much of a difference these brief encounters can make in changing the way kids think about people in wheelchairs. “Their first reaction is that they are a little unsure, only because they just don’t know we are typically normal people who have suffered injuries,” he explains. “They have no idea we were just like their moms and dads before. But after an hour of questions and answers, and discussing all of the great things we can still do, they offer to push me, open doors, carry my things to the truck, anything to be involved.”

Kids aren’t the only ones affected by Brandon’s courage and positive outlook. His friends and family have been with him every step of the way the past two years, and are proud of what he has overcome. His mother, Carol Halloran Ferguson, isn’t at all surprised at her son’s resolve.

“It never occured to him to set limits. He never has,” she says. “Scott still has that twinkle in his eye and the good nature and easy grin. “He is still a loving father, son, brother and friend, facing the same daily struggles and joys as every other person.”

Brandon hopes to lead his sled hockey team to a gold medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, and to find that special someone to share his struggles and triumphs with. His biggest goal, though, is to be the kind of dad his sons can look up to and be proud of. With all he has overcome to this point, there is no doubt he has already gone a long way to accomplish that.

To read more fascinating articles about adaptive sports for people with disabilities, subscribe to Adaptive Sports & Recreation, the free ezine published every other Wednesday. Just send a blank email to: 41809-subscribe@zinester.com Or, visit the official Adaptive Sports & Recreation website at: http://www.adaptivesports.afreepress.com

Am I talking about death here? No, I’m talking about life after a spinal cord injury. Why did I phrase the title of this article as I did? Because for many people who suffer a spinal cord injury, their first thoughts after being informed of paralysis, or wheelchairs, or a severed spinal cord, causing the patient to never be able to walk again, is indeed death. “Why did I even live?”

I know that was one of my earliest thoughts after I was able to understand what was going on. Once I regained consciousness from my three days of coma, by awakening to a breathing tube being pulled from my throat, I was advised that I had an accident.

Maybe a few hours later, it’s hard to recall exactly, I began to comprehend the great distress in the doctor’s face and voice as he communicated to me about how my spine was broken in three places and the bone fragments had severed my spinal cord, and as a result I would never be able to walk again. Maybe it was at that time that I first wished myself dead.

Now its twenty-two years later. I’ve had twenty-two years of using a wheelchair for mobility. I’ve had twenty-two years of “Afterlife.” My spinal cord is still severed. I still have paralysis from chest-level down (T-4 to be exact). I have multiple wheelchairs; a basketball wheelchair, a tennis wheelchair, an everyday wheelchair. Over the years I’ve probably had close to 10 different wheelchairs. All of the chairs, all of the catheters, all of the baclofen, all of the leg bags and tubes, all of the paralysis paraphernalia thanks to one moment in time of loosing control of my car, hitting a guardrail, tree, and house, snapping my spine in three places and injuring my spinal cord.

Wouldn’t it have been better if I just didn’t have this kind of after life and experienced the bog finale afterlife instead? Well, I can’t answer that for sure because I have not been able to compare the two side by side. But I can tell you that you can have a life and a rather rewarding and fulfilling life, if you so choose, even after a spinal cord injury.

© Michael E. Hylton, TheWheeledWorld.org, June, 2006

© Michael E. Hylton, TheWheeledWorld.org, June, 2006
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