Compensating for Life

When people's vision is less than ideal, they wear glasses (or contacts or get expensive surgery done or just live with it.)

Some injuries or illnesses (or aging) can impair mobility, and people may walk with a cane or crutches or a walker, or sometimes use a wheelchair or other specialized equipment to get around.

Sometimes people adapt their homes for greater accessibility, or they use hearing aids, or companion animals, or maintenance medication, or prosthetic parts, or dialysis machines, as a way to compensate for some things their body can't do quite as well as they'd like.

Some deficiencies are mental or emotional, of course, and so people learn coping techniques and environmental management and they build networks of educated and compassionate friends and family, all to help them live as "normal" a life as possible.

It's a testament to the human spirit.  When our bodies or our brains let us down, we adapt.  We accommodate.  We adjust.  We don't give in to the infirmities; we find a way to compensate for them and so get on with the serious business of living.

In our household we try not to be defined by what we can't do (although in all fairness even Adored Wife, arguably the most "impaired" of us physically, is only mildly incapacitated; there are lots and lots of people much worse off.)  We make what allowances we have to, and then get on with things.

I can't prescribe this approach for everyone and I certainly don't mean to patronize--as I said, there are those who daily deal with MUCH more significant issues than we face, and for some of them that issue defines their lives.  But I'd encourage you, dear readers, with whatever physical or emotional or mental imperfection you live with, to find a way to compensate for it to the fullest extent possible, and get on with your life.

You can do this.

God bless.