My enterprising “boss” …

As most of you faithful readers know I am writing a weekly blog for the amazing website UNlimiters and my only qualification for doing so is the fact that I am an octogenarian !! Who would imagine that, at my age, I would have a “boss” in his twenties? His name is Justin and I thought you might be interested in his story so I sent him three questions and these are his answers:

Question #1 …Justin, you were born with cerebral palsy but you have such an optimistic outlook on life. To what do you attribute this and were you always upbeat?

"I have been positive and upbeat for as long as I can remember. I attribute this to three things.
I have great parents. They never put any limitations on me and I could always do anything my siblings did (even if it required one of them carrying me while doing it). From an early age. my parents instilled in me the saying, “You can do anything you set your mind to.” The first time I remember truly enacting on the saying was walking 100 subsequent steps by myself. I would ask anyone I knew at the time to count my steps for me. 5, 10, 20, 50 and finally at the age of 10, I managed to achieve my goal of 100 steps. I am always setting different goals for myself and giving up is never an option.

Being able to laugh at myself. I am a big believer in laughter being the best medicine. If you laugh at yourself, it is hard to not be happy all of the time. This is especially useful when you have a disability; it can make others comfortable and it makes life extra fun. Throughout my life, I have learned the fastest way to make people feel comfortable with your disability is to poke fun at it. Plus, having a disability provides more material to laugh at, if you let yourself. Life is fun!

Why not? Life is too short to not be upbeat and live with a positive attitude. In his old age, my grandfather started to worry about his disability - old age. I would always tell him, “You are who you are.” He enjoyed it every time I gave him my “UNlimiters pep talk.”

The way I see it, you can either be positive or be negative, and I choose to be positive. Live life to the fullest!"

…to be continued.