Tag Archives: Perseverance

Day 582

What other people can do is their business and what you can do is your business – that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 5: 42 PM on day 582 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, drink Oats by myself, prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, work, feed myself garlic bread and sausage for breakfast – I tried to eat with a fork and knife it was an epic fail I’ll again tomorrow 🙂 – exercise my right hand, promote my I Am Disabled Campaign, watch TV, feed myself chicken biryani for lunch, exercise my legs and watch some more TV.

This morning struggling to cut my bread with a knife I found myself thinking other people can do this without a second thought and before I knew it I was frustrated and in tears in that moment I vowed never again to compare myself to other people unless I was doing it to better myself because once I start thinking other people can do this without a second thought I go into this is so unfair what did I do to deserve this it’s just not pretty. Do you always fall short because you focus on other people and not on yourself?

Day 581

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You can be educated and still be uneducated– that’s what I learned today 🙁

It’s 6: 50 PM on day 581 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, work, drink tea by myself, read Does Canceling a Birthday Mean I Don’t Age?… on Chasing Rainbows, feed myself chicken biryani for lunch – I used a fork and didn’t spill I was SO IMPRESSED – drink water from a glass – I thought I was spill I was so impressed when I didn’t 🙂 – and watch TV.

Yesterday one of my mom’s friends – a woman who attends monthly prayer groups with her – came by to drop off some dessert and just as she was about to leave I said see you later she looked so surprised that I could form a complete thought which really cut me to the core considering she was by no means an uneducated woman – she’s a high school teacher – just goes to show how much disability awareness is needed in my community I now truly see why I was born specifically to my parents and into this community I am meant to teach people the lessons that my “disability” has taught me – 1) when you strip away all the labels that society puts on us we are all human beings 2) find joy in the simple things you can do that you otherwise wouldn’t notice 3) be grateful 4) don’t sweat the small stuff. Are you an educated uneducated person?

Day 580

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See the world as it truly is but NEVER accept that it cannot be changed– that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 5: 01 PM on day 580 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to feed myself Appam and chicken curry for breakfast, drink tea by myself, prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, publish my Kid of the Week feature and promote my I Am Disabled Campaign.

I dedicated most of the day to promoting my I Am Disabled Campaign (I know I know I should’ve been practicing how to eat with a fork or something but it’s the weekend my mother’s home and she insists on helping me do things – I think she thinks she’s failing me as a mother if she doesn’t help even though I’ve told her on numerous occasions that the opposite is true – so ticking things off my list on weekends is out of the question) unfortunately more people ignored me than not but it’s okay I’m used to being ignored I’ll just keep plowing through people’s closed ears and hardened hearts because I truly believe that God gave me Cerebral Palsy so I can make the world a less ignorant place. Have you given up on the world?

Day 480

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Everything is part of a bigger plan…nothing happens at random – that’s what I learned today 🙂

it’s 7: 52 PM on day 480 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to watch TV, brush my teeth, drink pineapple juice – from a glass – by myself, try to add a custom header on this blog made for me by my friend, Margot – I gave her the wrong size by mistake and now it doesn’t fit – prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, feed myself rice and curry for lunch and read Love That Max, Chasing Rainbow and Bird on the Street.

Today I looked back on my twenty five days in India and realized that going to a country where there is so much stigma around disabled people and having to say to people there’s nothing wrong with me every time they pitied me has made me more confident than ever in myself. Do you walk in faith believing that everything that happens is for the best or question every experience?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

If you’ve given to my cause or you can’t give now, please help me by sharing my cause with others. You can tweet about it like my friend Stan Faryna. This is the tweet he uses: @Nisha360 is a brave, smart young woman trying to make a better world for us all. Please help her do an amazing thing. http://bit.ly/hC7vOu

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 478

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It takes just as much time to fix something as it does it to complain– that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 8: 41 PM on day 478 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, watch TV, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – mostly sent thank you tweets in reply to the congratulatory tweets people sent me yesterday for reaching my goal – prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, feed myself rice and curry for lunch and take a nap– I wasn’t feeling well.

As you may know I recently went to India from twenty five days – if you have no idea what I’m taking about refer to posts Day 451-Day 475 – to visit my mother’s side of the family and while there I felt the full force of the ignorance of the population people stared, whispered, asked is that the ‘sick’ child with me in the same room and the only time I cried was at night thinking about all the children who lived there who are locked away somewhere not being allowed to dream in that moment I knew I had to do something to create change and realized that God made me disabled so that I could make the lives of other disabled people better so today I’m making a commitment to using my social media platforms – Facebook and Twitter – to raise awareness about different disabilities in countries like India where people don’t have much exposure to people who are different. Do you spend your time fixing or complaining?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 477

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Perseverance pays off –that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 8: 41 PM on day 477 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, practice sitting properly – my core muscles are weaker than those of average people so I have to practice sitting straight in my wheelchair – watch TV, feed myself scrambled eggs – with a fork – for breakfast, drink Coke Zero – from a grass – by myself, prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – Carolyn (@carpathia16) made a $200 donation on 12/31/2011 and Chrissy (@ChrissyPappas) made a $1 111.11 today – thanks guys you two are part of the reason I reached my goal three months early 🙂 – watch I Don’t Know How She Does It – a movie which portrays the challenges facing working mothers in an honest but humorous light staring Sarah Jessica Parker – at the Hemingways Mall, and eat Ice-cream with my sister, her friend and her friend’s parents

This morning I logged on to my Firstgiving page to find that I surpassed my fundraising goal –my target was $6 500 I’ve raised $7 256 so far – I am keeping the page open until 3 March 2012 – the closing date of the page- so that people who have yet to donate can have the opportunity to do so – needless to say I was delighted and wondered what would have happened if I gave up all the times I wanted to just goes to show that you should never ever give up. Do you persevere in every aspect of your life or give up when the going gets tough?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 409

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It’s okay to sound like a broken record if you’re saying something important – that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 7: 48 PM on day 409 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself bread and scrambled eggs for breakfast, chat to Ramon Thomas over at Ramon Thomas: Pychology of Technology via Skype–we’re working together on something stay tuned to see what it is– prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, feed myself Chapati and chicken curry for lunch, watch TV, feed myself a mixed chicken and vagetable wrap for dinner brush my teeth once more and tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign –no luck.

A few months ago I donated $6.50 to the United Nations World Food Programme and ever since then they have been emailing me article, pictures and videos which I have been ignoring for fear that if I saw faces of suffering children I would be compelled to give but today I realized that other people ignore the problem and walk away not me so I bit the bullet and watched the videos I had been sent and this is what I saw:

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 408

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If you know your truth what others think of you should be of no consequence to you – that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 7: 11 PM on day 408 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, feed myself a scrambled egg for breakfast – I used a fork to feed myself I am SO PROUD of myself 🙂 – tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck today but Chrissy (@ChrissyPappas) made another donation yesterday – thanks Chrissy if more people were like you I would have reached my goal by now 🙂 – feed myself rice and curry for lunch, watch TV, feed myself bananas for dinner and brush my teeth once more.

Last night after my mother took me to the bathroom I asked is Kevin – my brother – using the laptop and she replied – I understand she was tired it’s not easy picking an average-sized twenty-year-old up and putting her on the toilet when you’re in your late forties – in an irritated tone he’s studying you’re on the laptop twenty-four hours a day which really pissed me off because she made it sound like she thought I was sitting around playing games all day but now I realize that I shouldn’t care what anybody thinks I do because I know that I work from 7 AM to midday on this blog after which I promote my campaign with EVERYTHING I’ve got only to hear a thousand nos before I finally hear a yes. Is what others think of you of consequence to you?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 380

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Our job as human beings is to try and be a better version of ourselves than we were yesterday whether we “succeed” or “fail” on any given day is besides the point – that’s what I learned today 🙂

It’s 7: 20 PM on day 380 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, practice writing by hand, prepare and publish my Disability of the Day feature, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – Chrissy (@chrissy_bertolo) made a donation and on top of that I made another donation on her behalf –she accidently sent money to my PayPal account intending to donate it to my campaign – thank you SO MUCH Chrissy 🙂 – feed myself a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast, watch TV feed myself rice and curry for lunch, watch some more TV, feed myself an oranges for dinner and brush my teeth once more.

This morning I saw an orange on the kitchen counter and decided that I would try and cut it by myself – somebody usually does it for me – but the only thing I ending up doing was stabbing the juice out of it eventually I asked our housekeeper to do it for me because I didn’t what her to get fired if I cut myself in some way in that moment I felt like such a failure but then I thought to myself so what I wasn’t able to cut the orange today a week ago I could hold a glass by myself doesn’t mean I eventually didn’t and that is my message to you guys do something you’ve never done before and if you don’t succeed the first time try, try and try again. Are you doing your job as a human being?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!

Day 371

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The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s 7: 38 PM on day 371 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself oats for breakfast, practice picking up a glass and putting it back on the table for a few hours – I can now do that to my satisfaction 🙂 – practice writing by hand, watch TV, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign – no luck – feed myself yoghurt for lunch, watch some TV, continue reading Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, continue watching TV, feed myself spaghetti bolognaise for dinner – I used a fork and for the first time ever I didn’t make a huge mess I am SO happy and proud of myself 🙂 – and brush my teeth once more.

Today as I was practicing picking up a glass and putting it down on the time I realized that I am joyful all the time because although I can only do little in the physical sense I celebrate every little thing I can do and even when there’s something I can’t do I practice it over and over and over again until I can and that is something I think is missing in today’s world when people don’t achieve their dreams the first, second or even third time around they forget about what they’ve already achieved and just throw in the towel saying it wasn’t meant to be whereas I say I’ll try again tomorrow because I truly believe that you don’t work towards your dream for one year or even ten you work towards your dream until it becomes reality. Do you have the invariable mark of wisdom?

Are we connecting on Twitter? If not, say hi at http://twitter.com/Nisha360

Stan’s very sweet for saying so, but feel free to write what reflects you best.

Thanks to all my friends out there who are helping me make my dream come true: to make a better world for all of us!