Originally posted by vasily_sergeev at Маки

Originally posted by shpilenok at Чем пахнет электричество, или Кроноцкие электрики.

Consolation by Wilda Morris

(after Billy Collins)   I want to console you on this rainy day, dear reader, when your dog wants to take a walk and you don’t. I want to tell you I’m sorry your toast burned and you dropped that raw egg on your newly waxed floor. Things are bound to get better—unless you get a late notice from your credit card company because you forgot to pay the bill and the added interest is enough to purchase a shiny new Yamaha motorcycle; ( Read more... )

From "No end in sight: My life as a blind Iditarod racer", by Rachael Scdoris and Rick Steber
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"...Some people try to put limitations on me because they want me to fit into the legally blind box. There are the naysayers out there who say I have no business being out on the trail, or running dogs, or doing any of the other activities I am involved in.  A perfect example of this occurred during my freshman year of high school. I was running a cross-country race and got clotheslined by a guy wire. One minute I was running and the next I was on the ground, flat on my back. Once I got over the shock I jumped up and continued to run. A woman standing near Dad admonished him with, "Your daughter is blind. How could you let her do something so dangerous?"

Dad came back with the greatest answer: "What would you like for her to do? Sit on a couch with a white cane over her lap and be blind?"

I refuse to sit back and let life quietly slip past me. I want to be involved. I want to try things. I want to live and experience everything I possibly can. I know there are dangers out there. I accept them. No, I embrace them. Dangers present us with fear. And fear is my fuel. It makes me go.  If I did not meet the dangers of this world head-on and come to grips with my fear,  I would be cheating myself.

Those people who are content to sit on the couch and say, "I'm blind," or, "I'm deaf," or, "I'm sick," are missing something--a life.

My blindness gives me a sharp contrast between easy and difficult. It forces me to push past the limitations other people try to place on me. Over and over again I am obligated to prove my competence and, as a result, I push harder to achieve than anyone else I know.

I hope this book will provide a window of understanding of the fact that just because a person has a physical impairment or certain limitations that person is not helpless. Those of us who are impaired or limited must cling to the possibility of hope. Hope that today's challenges will be overcome, hope that we can find the personal strength to face yet another battle, hope that our individual lives will become more rewarding.
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Finally found the passage I had been looking for...here:
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...But, to sum it all up: remember that the door has been thrown open. Do not become a greater coward than the children, but just as they say, "I won't play any longer," when the thing does not please them, so do you also, when things seem to you to have reached that stage, merely say, "I won't play any longer," and take your departure; but if you stay, stop lamenting.
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How long, then, should we obey such commands? As long as it is beneficial, and that means, as long as I preserve what is becoming and consistent. Further, some men are unduly crabbed and have too sharp tongues and say, "I cannot dine at this fellow's house, where I have to put up with his telling every day how we fought in Moesia: 'I have told you, brother, how I climbed up to the crest of the hill; well now, I begin to be besieged again.'" But another says, "I would rather dine and hear him babble all he pleases."

And it is for you to compare these estimates; only do nothing as one burdened, or afflicted, or thinking that he is in a wretched plight; for no one forces you to do this. Has some one made a smoke in the house? If he has made a moderate amount of smoke I shall stay; if too much, I go outside. For one ought to remember always and hold fast to this, that the door stands open.

But some one says, "Do not dwell in Nicopolis." I agree not to dwell there. "Nor in Rome." I agree not to dwell in Rome, either. "Dwell in Gyara." But to dwell in Gyara seems to me to be like a great quantity of smoke in the house. I leave for a place where no one will prevent me from dwelling; for that dwelling-place stands open to every man.