Turning a Disability into a Superpower
Don't hate her, but Aimee Mullins is smart, brave, beautiful, and has really long legs. And she also has short legs. And wooden legs. And cheetah legs. And glass legs. In all, twelve pairs. I know, some ladies have all the luck.
Mullins was born without shinbones and had her legs amputated as a baby. But it is no exaggeration at all to say that this woman has not been slowed down a whit by her so-called disability. If anything, she's been sped up by it, or at least by her amazing bionic legs she used to break world running records at the 1996 Paralympic Games; she's an accomplished athlete, an actress, a model, and an advocate. And in this TED talk, Mullins discusses how her legs give her super powers, how in the world of disability there is room for poetry, room for whimsy, how prosthetics can help a person move on from a disability into becoming the architect of her own identity.
As she said in another one of her TED talks, “Adversity isn’t an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. It’s part of our life.” Wise words for all of us, bionic super heroes and boring old biological creatures alike.
(via Upworthy.)
Read More:
From Disability Advocate to Athlete
An Amputee Becomes a Mermaid
Mullins was born without shinbones and had her legs amputated as a baby. But it is no exaggeration at all to say that this woman has not been slowed down a whit by her so-called disability. If anything, she's been sped up by it, or at least by her amazing bionic legs she used to break world running records at the 1996 Paralympic Games; she's an accomplished athlete, an actress, a model, and an advocate. And in this TED talk, Mullins discusses how her legs give her super powers, how in the world of disability there is room for poetry, room for whimsy, how prosthetics can help a person move on from a disability into becoming the architect of her own identity.
As she said in another one of her TED talks, “Adversity isn’t an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. It’s part of our life.” Wise words for all of us, bionic super heroes and boring old biological creatures alike.
(via Upworthy.)
Read More:
From Disability Advocate to Athlete
An Amputee Becomes a Mermaid
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