"Breaking Out of My Comfort Zone"

Have you ever tried to break boards with your bare hands? I’ve heard several times that some people can, but always thought they must be really tough or somehow be able to focus all their energy into a point. However they did it, I never envisioned myself doing it, until recently. My perspective changed at a youth leadership academy for the blind last May, where I was a counselor. A few adults demonstrated a technique to the youth, and it wasn’t long until I heard of some youth even busting through 3 or 4 boards at a time. The National Federation of the Blind believes that pushing people out of their comfort zone is a very important part of training blind individuals to be more independent and successful, as it builds their confidence to try other things, thus enabling them to break through attitudinal barriers and grow personally.

As I sat there, unwilling to risk hurting my hands, I thought about what message I might be sending to the youth, for whom I was supposed to be a role model. Not wanting to show any fear of trying something new, but rather wanting to demonstrate a “can do” attitude, I stepped out of my comfort zone by stepping forward to try breaking some boards. I reviewed the technique in person, took a step back, and took a good swing at the two boards being held in front of me. To my amazement, both broke completely through, and that without hurting my hand. The youth around me thought it was great, but I fell into introspection for a while. I wondered how many other things I had never tried in my life, simply because I believed what others told me was impossible for a blind person. I’m so grateful to people who have pushed me to try new things, like my parents and my wife.
Shortly before that weekend with the blind youth, my wife Kim really pushed me out of my comfort zone, inciting me to do something I had always been afraid of. It was the last day of our two-week vacation in Peru. We had visited several museums, fascinating ruins (like Machu Picchu) and had even spent half a week in the jungle. Now, we were ready to unwind a little, before returning home. We thought that spending some time relaxing on the beach would accomplish that, but found the water to be rather chilly, the surf unusually strong and the plentiful jellyfish to be rather large – a foot or so in diameter. As we bummed around a nearby outdoor mall, Kim marveled at a number of people paragliding, sailing on the updrafts on the steep coast, suspended from large parachutes. Though it sounded like fun, it was definitely something I had always said I would never do, as it seemed foolish to put my life in the hands of something as uncertain as the wind.
Nevertheless, as we were packing up our room on the last day of our trip, Kim announced: “I know what you’re doing today”. I figured that it probably was something I really like, since she knows me quite well by now. But, when I learned that it was paragliding she was planning out, I thought she must have lost her mind. She tried to arrest my concerns by explaining that I would be accompanied by an experienced instructor; but, I didn’t gain much comfort from knowing that at least I wouldn’t be dying alone. Then my risk management logic kicked into gear in a somewhat unusual way. I figured, if the instructor is assuming this risk day in and day out, and has managed to survive it for several years, then I could possibly risk paragliding for 15 minutes. So, off we went to the coastal cliff.

When we got there and paid for my paragliding session, no one seemed too concerned about my blindness, since I’d be flying in tandem with a sighted instructor anyway. I felt excited but not that nervous; however, when they hooked the harness around me and then ordered me to run towards the cliff, I was glad I couldn’t see the 150 feet drop-off in front of me. When my feet all of a sudden lost touch with the ground, I did feel rather uneasy for the first 10 seconds of being airborne. But, as we started gaining altitude and I felt the cool ocean breeze rush by my face, my fear gave way to bliss. Though it did feel rather odd to hear the foaming ocean so far beneath me, I was enjoying the freedom of a bird too much to really care. As the instructor was taking us through gentle swoops and loops, he remarked: “If I could only give you my eyes right now”. I replied: “But why? There’s so much for me to enjoy with all my other senses”. So, he closed his eyes, and liked it so much that he kept them shut for a while. Of course, he did open his eyes again to bring us in for a safe landing. As we parted, I thanked him for a wonderful time, and he thanked me for opening his understanding to what it’s like to be blind.
As each of us stepped out of our comfort zone that day, each of our lives was enriched.Once again, my understanding of what blind people can and cannot do was altered, thus boosting my confidence to try something else that’s traditionally held to be impossible for someone who’s blind.

"Shaping Our Environment"

In the past year, I have been reflecting upon the things in my past, which have shaped my views on life and blindness and the people who have contributed to my success. Those of you who have heard me speak before know that my parents have been very supportive, encouraging and progressive. Though they weren’t familiar with the National Federation of the Blind during my childhood, they modeled NFB’s philosophy and did their best to instill it in me. For instance, they expected of me the same as my sighted brother and sister, and never let me use my blindness as an excuse for getting out of anything, whether it be assisting with the household chores or participating in activities.

As I grew up, I became increasingly aware of how fortunate I really was, as I knew of several parents of blind children who were quite fearful, stifling and backward. The attitudes in Germany were such that my parents received criticism for allowing me to explore the world in my own way. I also feel that I was very lucky to experience several positive changes in my environment, which made my life more enjoyable and made it easier to achieve my full potential. It wasn’t until fairly recently that I recognized that many of these changes weren’t just a result of happenstance, but were rather attributable to my parents’ efforts. This will become quite clear through the examples I’m about to give you. Though my mom and dad are, and always have been, very different people, they allowed their differences to compliment each other in their united fight for my freedom and progress. With my mom’s emphasis on technology and training and my dad’s emphasis on the institutional aspects, the two made a very effective team.

One of their earlier successes dealt with my mobility training, which I was fortunate enough to start receiving at the young age of 9 after we moved to America. Within a few months, I was comfortably navigating the streets around the Pittsburgh School For the Blind, which I was attending at the time. After four months of training, we returned to Germany, and I could not continue receiving this instruction. Unfortunately, we found the attitudes there to be at least 20 years behind those prevalent in the U.S., and ran into a lot of fear and opposition from school administration and even parents. My parents pushed the local blind school hard for the completion of my mobility training, but the school principal refused, probably because I was so young. Since words couldn't persuade him, my parents simply had me walk through the streets of town one day, with the principal and several blind students' parents watching, with mouths gaping in amazement. After that, the principal allowed me to finish my training, enabling me to use public transportation independently by the time I was 10. With this positive experience, the school started offering mobility training to other younger children.

When I completed sixth grade, I had to switch to a boarding school, about 120 miles away from home. This was the only college preparatory school for the blind in all of Germany at that time. Right away, my parents had to face a major battle, to allow me to come home more than just once every 6 to 8 weeks. When they found that the principal wouldn't bend, they rallied the school's parent/teacher association behind them, which seemed to have more power than what American PTA's enjoy. With my father as the PTA's vice president, they were able to force the principal to be more progressive by threatening him with early retirement.

When the 6-week limitation was abolished, I generally took the train home about every other weekend. Instead of being looked down on and teased by my peers, as the principal had feared, some of my buddies joined me, and a trend was started. To guarantee this freedom to other students in the long-term, my parents got involved with Germany's national blind parents association, and had them put the rule in writing.

With my parents' positive influence at the school for the blind and my excellent mobility skills, instruction in mobility and independent living skills for all students was stepped up, and the whole climate improved. In fact, by the time I left the school just 3 and a half years later, virtually all seniors were participating in off-campus independent living programs, from which all of my friends were able to benefit later on.

Though things were going well at that school, my parents felt that the best thing for me would be to be integrated into a regular school, which at that time was unheard of in Germany. My parents tried to get me into a school close to home, but all of them turned me down. I vividly remember hearing one of the principals say: "Why, he might fall down the stairs and hurt himself; we can't accept that liability." My parents wouldn't take "NO" for an answer, and took my case even as high as the state's education minister. When that failed, they searched far and wide, until they finally found a school in Vienna that would take me. So, the entirely family moved, even though this meant that my dad had to take a sizable cut in pay. The school, called the American International School, welcomed me in enthusiastically, and I graduated from there with honors in 1981. Having received the skills I needed and my parents' healthy attitudes, I didn't have much difficulty adjusting to the new school or to college thereafter.

One of the important skills I had acquired was reading with the Optacon, a device that converts printed images into tactile images on an array of vibrating pins. My parents knew it was important for me to acquire this skill, in order to continue my education independently, especially since my areas of emphasis were engineering and mathematics. Since good instructors for the Optacon were hard to come by in the mid 70's, my mother received the necessary training to become one herself, and then taught me and continued to drill me.

Being proficient with the use of the Optacon, I was able to not only read printed text without assistance but also look at graphs and complex diagrams and read computer screens. Now that speech output has become much more affordable and reading machines have been developed and perfected, the Optacon has lost its popularity; but things haven't always been this way.

Back in the mid 70's, computer speech was still fairly primitive and reading machines only existed in people's imagination. But, when my father heard that the German postal service had started to use computerized scanners to sort mail, he knew that reading machines for the blind would be just around the corner. So, he decided to research the matter himself, and collected all the information he could at the country's largest technology expo. He found that, even though the technology was all there to create a reading machine, nobody was doing it. So, he put a convincing proposal together to the German government, to find a developer and fund the research for a reading machine. They were very impressed with his proposal and, within a fairly short amount of time, the German company AEG Telefunken took the ball and ran with it. After just 18 months, they demonstrated a working prototype to my father; and, to this day, they are one of the leaders in the business.

In parallel with these efforts, a reading machine was under development in the U.S. by Ray Kurzweil and his staff. Though we were still living in Europe at the time, my father made a personal visit to the States and presented his research proposal to them. When he learned of their struggles with the speech output, he suggested to the team that they concentrate their efforts on the optical character recognition (OCR) and defer the speech output development. They followed his advice, as the Germans had already developed the software to translate computer text into Braille. As soon as Kurzweil had conquered the OCR challenges, they developed excellent speech output, thus creating an excellent reading machine by the time I reached college. It helped me get through the vast amounts of textbooks I had to read during my studies, and I have continued using reading machines on the job. In fact, I just recently purchased the Kurzweil 1000, deemed by most to be the best OCR software in the market.

When I expressed my gratitude to my parents for how hard they fought to bring about these changes, they said that they just did what any parent would have. But, when I look around me, I find that they are the exception, not the norm. It's not because parents don't want to fight for what's best for their children, but rather I think they feel powerless in breaking down barriers, changing rules and advancing technology. I'm afraid that many parents have succumbed to the increasingly popular philosophy that we are just victims of our environment. This philosophy is then passed on to their children, and I'm sure there are some here today who have embraced it too. But, since this way of thinking provides a convenient way of taking the blame off ourselves for past failures and current shortcomings, it prevents us from reaching our full potential. If we're really honest with ourselves, I think that each of us would admit that we've entertained this mentality at one time or another.

I'm writing this today to urge all of you to shake off this destructive outlook, and to take full advantage of the great network of people we have in the NFB. One of the statements at this year's national convention that inspired me most was: "Raindrops make a forest grow and bring strong mountains down". Not everyone will have connections with the right people in power or have the where-with-all to push along technological advancements. But, when we draw from the experiences and expertise of others in our lives and in the organization, we can succeed at shaping our environment.

"It’s Crystal Clear Now"

Is there something you really enjoyed as a child, but you’ve never gotten around to doing it as an adult? Perhaps it’s going to the circus, eating cotton candy at a baseball game, or sleeping out under the stars. For me it was cross-country skiing. When I heard what a tremendous amount of snow the northwest U.S. had received this past winter and my sister had discovered some great places for skiing, I said to myself “What are you waiting for?” I had just received a bonus from my company, and with my wife’s encouragement, decided to spend some of it on sheer enjoyment. So, I hopped on a plane in early March to Boise, where my sister and her husband live, rented the necessary ski equipment, and headed together for a beautiful cabin outside of Stanley, a tiny town nestled in the Grand Teton Mountains at 6,000-ft elevation.

When we arrived in a few hours, we were delighted to find that conditions were nearly ideal for skiing, with several inches of fine powder snow on top of a 5-foot base, and afternoon temperatures around 20. Though I hadn’t skied in 20 years, it didn’t take me long to get the hang of it once again. However, my sister did have to remind me about proper posture a number of times, such as keeping my knees slightly bent at all times. This makes it much easier for the body to absorb shocks from unexpected sudden changes. This is especially important for someone who’s totally blind, like myself, and though my sighted companions did very well in warning me of major changes that lay ahead, they couldn’t possibly tell me of every little bump in the path.

Along the path of life, I’ve definitely hit some “bumps” of a different kind in the road, some not so small. Had I not been flexible, these bumps would have knocked me off my feet and been far more painful than they were. In the summer of ’99, for example, when we totaled our van in Louisiana, rather than scrapping our vacation plans altogether and returning home with our four children, we scaled down the travel plans a bit and relaxed with relatives in South Carolina for a week and a half before purchasing a new van to travel slowly home to Arizona.

Besides keeping a flexible posture in skiing, I also had to be adaptable – that is, I needed to be able to make mid-course corrections, even while traveling down hill at high speeds. This is accomplished by making small corrective steps or by leaning into the curve and digging the inside edges of the skies into the snow. Since we mostly traveled along forest service roads, which are seldom straight, failure to make these adjustments likely meant getting more intimately acquainted with a tree than one would care to.

Just as there are people who steer well and others who don’t, I’ve met people who deal with mid-course corrections in life fairly well and others who don’t. One of the first major mid-course corrections I had to make occurred in my sophomore year in college. I had always wanted to be a weatherman, and was therefore studying atmospheric physics at Northern Arizona University. When my courses required reading weather maps but I couldn’t find a way to decipher them without sight, I was forced to make a major change. I’m glad I listened to the advice of my counselors, and changed my major to electrical engineering. I ended up doing very well in this field of study, graduating near the top of the class in 3 years, and landing a great job with a power company right out of college.

Just as I trusted my advisors in college, who had a better long-range view than I did, trusting my sister implicitly and completely was paramount on our skiing outing. When she would yell “Stop”, I didn’t have time to ask, “Why, what’s in the way?” unless I wanted to find myself straddling a rock. It was when I fully trusted that she would alert me to any danger that I could relax and really enjoy the experience. When we came to a wide-open slope, without any trees or rocks to worry about, I could just let myself go, rather than slowing down through the ski-plowing maneuver. I so enjoyed the feel of speed, with the icy wind rushing by my face, that I would often go through the effort to climb the hill again, so that I could enjoy whizzing down it yet another time. I found rushing down the hill to be fairly easy; it’s that initial push-off that’s hard, due to my fear of the unknown. At first, I would stand at the top of a hill for a while, wondering what would happen if I hit a bump and fell, or whether there was an obstacle my sister had neglected to tell me about. But, over a short time, my trust in my sister and my own abilities dispelled those fears.

How often we hold back, keeping us from enjoying things we love most and from capitalizing on opportunities we’ve labored for. Isn’t it so often because of being afraid to fail or having difficulty trusting others? Without trust, even in those who aren’t perfect, we cannot function as human beings. Before we accept a ride from someone, do we first verify that his or her driving record is perfect, or do we trust in their abilities to navigate us to our destination safely?

Because of the trust I have in my sister, as well as my decent skiing technique and a “can do” attitude, I was able to have a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. Yes, I did fall a few times each day, but never really got hurt. As I stood outside on the last day in the early morning, to enjoy the novelty of the clean, crisp sub-zero air, I reflected on the great time we had together. Not only did we have a great time skiing, but my relationship with my sister and her husband deepened, and affirmed my understanding of some important truths as well. The need for flexibility, adaptability, trust, and the importance of enjoyable experiences were all crystallizing in my mind, just as the morning mist was doing in mid-air on that memorable day.