There's a line I get a lot that I actually hate. "You're an inspiration." People say it all the time without realizing that it's for that exact reason among others that it means absolutely nothing. It may seem like a compliment but you're really saying when you say that is one of two things.
1) You've given me an idea or 2) I felt sorry for you, but now I don't because you made feel guilty about complaining and being lazy.
Now for the purposes of this post we're going to use and focus on the second use of the word that I listed above. Now to all the able-bodied community I ask you, if after having a conversation with someone they said to you, "Before talking to you I felt sorry for you, but now I don't because made me feel guilty about complaining and being lazy." Does that sound like a compliment? Now is this your fault? Not so much, it's the fault of the media moreso than anything else. After all, it's the media who toss the phrase around as if it were a baseball. It is made worse by the fact that it's always followed up with some sort of qualifier. However, the most outrageous part of this fallacy that has been created is that you can't remember any of our names. So if you can't remember any of our names, how exactly were you inspired? How do I know? Because the media almost always gives us the same qualifier, which is some variation of "You've overcame so much in life." They rather group us so that they can repeat the same underdog story in another 5 minute segment like they did two weeks ago than give us time to tell our individual stories. If you listen to media stories you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between me and Anthony Robles even though we have completely different disabilities that are not related to one another in any way and we've led vastly different lives and careers. We'd be that guy with a disability who did something "amazing." When in reality, all we did was train in our respective disciplines. So if you can't remember our names were we really an inspiration to you?
So the next time you want to tell "You're an inspiration." Think about what that really means, better yet say what you really mean.
.
1) You've given me an idea or 2) I felt sorry for you, but now I don't because you made feel guilty about complaining and being lazy.
Now for the purposes of this post we're going to use and focus on the second use of the word that I listed above. Now to all the able-bodied community I ask you, if after having a conversation with someone they said to you, "Before talking to you I felt sorry for you, but now I don't because made me feel guilty about complaining and being lazy." Does that sound like a compliment? Now is this your fault? Not so much, it's the fault of the media moreso than anything else. After all, it's the media who toss the phrase around as if it were a baseball. It is made worse by the fact that it's always followed up with some sort of qualifier. However, the most outrageous part of this fallacy that has been created is that you can't remember any of our names. So if you can't remember any of our names, how exactly were you inspired? How do I know? Because the media almost always gives us the same qualifier, which is some variation of "You've overcame so much in life." They rather group us so that they can repeat the same underdog story in another 5 minute segment like they did two weeks ago than give us time to tell our individual stories. If you listen to media stories you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between me and Anthony Robles even though we have completely different disabilities that are not related to one another in any way and we've led vastly different lives and careers. We'd be that guy with a disability who did something "amazing." When in reality, all we did was train in our respective disciplines. So if you can't remember our names were we really an inspiration to you?
So the next time you want to tell "You're an inspiration." Think about what that really means, better yet say what you really mean.
.
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