Helen Keller and Hope

Dear Readers,
I am lucky to live in a state with so much natural beauty.
It surrounds me. 
When I go for walks, I have a world of green at my feet. 
I always find new treasures.
Like a cool log bridge!
What you don't see in these photos is my hubs holding my hand most of the way while I am crossing!

I have been reading essays by Helen Keller and I am amazed. I am currently reading The World I LIve In & Optimism.
This woman who could not see or hear as we do, is inspiring me like no other writer.

Besides my deafness, I also only have one eye.
And that eye has a cataract with light sensitivity.
This makes driving extremely hard, and I now only go around the city in daytime with sunglasses and a hat  on.

At times I can feel very sorry for myself about my medical issues as well as my sobriety.
Reading Helen's essays on optimism is teaching me a new perspective. She learned to think completely differently, meeting life from a place of hope, not from a place of despair. From a place of richness, not from a place of lack.

"Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they could be! Lacking this gift or circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life, - if in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing."

I cannot read these words and not be moved.
How can I use what I read and apply them to my life?
I am so lucky to have been born during an age where an operation helped me hear words again!
I am lucky I have one eye and that can see the sky and trees around me!

How can I not look at my sobriety and be joyful about all it has given me? 
And it has!

My own self-talk is powerful. By being aware of what I say to myself, I can begin to change it.
I can use the language of hope and courage.
Of love, of faith.

I crossed the bridge with help, courage, and faith.
If I have that, how can I fall?

With Love,
On Day 397,
Wendy