I found two great quotes posted on Facebook today.  The first was posted by BFF and the second by Army Girl.

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. –H. Jackson Brown

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. – -Albert Camus

I love good quotes.  Unfortunately I have lots of time, I am hoping that will change after the first of the year.  But I am starting to do something productive.  Working on my MBA has been way more time-consuming than I thought it would be.  I can’t imagine trying to do it the “normal” way.  Of course being able to see my professor might be a help but I am not complaining.  Not having to get dressed and slog through the weather to get to class is way fine with me.   *** distraction alert.  There is a girl on GMA today that looks like she has play-doh on her head.  She is a singer and the song wasn’t too bad but the her hair is totally distracting me.***  If there is something you really want to do you can always find the time to do it.  It is one of the opportunity costs of doing things.  What are you willing to give up to do what you like to do?

I have always told my girls that normal is boring.  I learned when I was young that I didn’t desire to be unique like everyone else.  God forbid if you stand out when you are in your early teens.  I always wanted to stand out.  I like people noticing me.  I decided to expend my energy somewhere else.  Like swimming, I did 35 laps (one mile) in 56:04:19.

I am watching GMA this morning and they are talking to Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers.  He just said something very profound.  They asked him if Dick wasn’t his brother would they have still be together after all these years.  He said probably not.  They have had a few really big blow ups and then a few days later they have gotten over it, let whatever the problem was go and kept on going.  He wishes he could have done that with some of his wives and friends.  That link, being family is so amazing.  We all have different personalities, different beliefs, different ways of doing things, are very separate people, but I know they always have my back and I have theirs.  In the end that is what it is all about.

Happy thoughts for a happy day!

As easy as it may be to let the ways of the wicked get under our skin, be reminded that in the end, the evil man has no future. Don’t hold a grudge. Let it go – and just watch God do His thing.(thedailyverse.com) 

Fret not yourself because of evildoers, and be not envious of the wicked, for the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out. Proverbs 24:19,20

Power Thoughts 

1. “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” ~ Helen Keller
2. “The ratio of We’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team. ” ~ Lewis B. Ergen
3. “None of us is as smart as all of us. ” ~ Ken Blanchard

I can’t help being a skeptic, an inquisitor, a contemplator of the inconcrete. When I was reading this old book in my house, Great Americans In Their Own Words, as I got to the last autobiographical tale, Helen Keller’s, I found myself wondering how real she actually was. I know, we’ve all read the Miracle Worker when we were younger and were intrigued by Annie Sullivan’s courageous and unprecedented efforts and results with the untamable, tantrumatic, violent deaf-blind child. A little warming sensation came over our hearts when she spoke the words “wah wah.” But a serious part of me questions her actual ultimate level of articulative thought and the ability she has to perceive and interpret things.

You might be saying, “Oh this is a little unseemly, my friend, you’re criticizing and doubting probably one of the most important public figures for people with disabilities ever in the world? What are you some type of crazy jerk?” Crazy? Maybe. Jerk? That’s up to you. But listen, after thinking about this, I googled: was helen keller a phony. A lot of stuff came up. What I found most interesting was a great article in the New Yorker magazine called ‘What Helen Keller Saw,’ by Cynthia Ozick.

The article starts off with a little bit of background information on both Keller and Sullivan, but then gets into the questionable degree of ambiguity on where Keller’s thoughts actually came from. That’s right. It turns out I’m not the only Helen Keller conspiracy theorist. Ozwick wrote that at least 3 separate times in her life, the likeliness of genuinity in her work was seriously doubted. Reading the article, I understood these doubts as the author stated that the “wah wah” incident happened at age 7 and by age 9, Keller wrote this to an author:

I thought you would be glad to hear that your beautiful poems make me very happy. Yesterday I read “In School Days” and “My Playmate,” and I enjoyed them greatly. . . . It is very pleasant to live here in our beautiful world. I cannot see the lovely things with my eyes, but my mind can see them all, and so I am joyful all the day long. When I walk out in my garden I cannot see the beautiful flowers, but I know that they are all around me; for is not the air sweet with their fragrance? I know too that the tiny lily-bells are whispering pretty secrets to their companions else they would not look so happy. I love you very dearly, because you have taught me so many lovely things about flowers and birds, and people.

That’s a beautiful letter, but I find it unreal, the fact that it was written by someone who, at most 2 years prior was a deaf-blind illiterate non-language speaking mute that just made the connection for the first time that objects have some type of symbolic representation. Now all the sudden she’s writing like a college student? On the “wah wah’” incident, Ozwick quotes a reflecting Keller saying, “somehow, the mystery of language was revealed to me;” the thirst for knowledge began there.

According to Ozwick, most skeptics say that because Keller would have such a hard time understanding the world around her without ever seeing it, most of her thoughts were merely the perceptions of those closest to her and influenced by what she read. This theory has some credibility because for almost two thirds of her life, Annie Sullivan was with her everywhere; each school she went to Sullivan would transcribe every lecture note and sign everything into her hands. Also, later in her life, she lived with a strongly socialist man, Sullivan’s husband, and it was reflected in her writing.

Which brings me to my next point. Keller wrote a couple different memoirs and autobiographies, among other things, and in Ozwick’s article, she quotes Sullivan’s husband saying:

When she began work at her story, more than a year ago, she set up on the Braille machine about a hundred pages of what she called “material,” consisting of detached episodes and notes put down as they came to her without definite order or coherent plan. . . . Then came the task where one who has eyes to see must help her. Miss Sullivan and I read the disconnected passages, put them into chronological order.

So they took all these little pieces and put a coherent book together? I mean, I like anchovies, but this sounds a little too fishy for me. There’s also a lot of gray areas concerning Annie Sullivan’s motives, like she, a writer, was robbed of her own life because Helen was so dependent on her and so consequently she was living vicariously through her pupil by putting certain thoughts into her head and then publishing them. Now that’s some serious Helen Keller conspiracy theory.

It’s hard to wrap your mind around all of this. To teach someone to read and write and express their feelings when they can’t see or here seems almost impossible. Then, for instance, to one day describe to that person, who has a clean slate of a mind, the concept of war and killing; how do you do that by doing sign language in someone’s hands? How could she perceive the storming of the beach at Normandy or an atomic bomb blowing up Hiroshima? I think Ozwick says it the best when she states “she was close cousin to those novelists who write not only what they do not know but what they cannot possibly know.”

There’s too much vagueness because this all happened so long ago. I’m not saying it’s impossible, because, obviously I have no idea, but it’s just my nature to question, so I’m questioning.

Read Ozwick’s article, it’s good.

I just read this amazing quote that I wanted to share. “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” Helen Keller.  I have had a few profound experiences like this lately in which I was not able to put into words how I felt.  Sure this can be true when talking about love, but that wasn’t my topic the other day.

I felt like Jodie Foster’s character in the movie Contact in which she is in the cosmos seeing the beauty of it all and she remarks that they should have sent a poet because she didn’t know how to describe how amazing everything looked to her.  Well, that happened to me recently in which I was touched by a friend’s heart with regard to an issue I was chatting about with her.  Right now, my gratitude overfloweth.  Do you ever have those moments?

A few days ago I read the following Keller quote on my iGoogle.com homepage.

College isn’t the place to go for ideas. — Helen Keller (01880-01968)

A day later I received a tweet that contained a hyperlink to a Knuth related webpage that included the following quote.

I have always liked the concept of universities as they were
in Ancient Greece, where folks who had something cool to say
would just come and say it. It wasn’t about recognition; the
impetus was the thought that you were resonating with ideas.
– Donald Knuth (01938-)

Does Knuth’s quote lend credence to Keller’s quote?

If modern day universities are places to go for ideas, then why would Knuth reminisce about Acient Greece?

The Wireless connection.

Keep twisting those knobs there guys and you’ll get there eventually or else just press play.

Nicht Sehen trennt von den Dingen. Nicht Hören von den Menschen

Ein Spruch, der in fast jedem Buch und Artikel über Schwerhörigkeit, Ertaubung und Gehörlosigkeit vorkommt und der meist Helen Keller zugeschrieben wird — einer Taubblinden, die es ja wissen muss.

Dabei scheint der Spruch ursprünglich von Kant zu sein, dem Philosophen, der sein Leben fast ausschließlich in Königsberg verbrachte, was seiner Philisophie oft von naseweisen Erstsemestern zum Vorwurf gemacht wird. Hahaha, der habe doch von der Welt nichts gesehen und dann so einen Anspruch!

Ist es nicht interessant, dass der allgemein zustimmungsfähige Spruch über Taubheit und Blindheit von jemand zu sein scheint, der selbst kein besonderes Problem mit hören und sehen hatte?

Der Mann muss wirklich außergewöhnliche Vorstellungsgabe gehabt haben. Gut, okay, wir reden hier über Kant, stimmt…. Allerdings habe ich nirgends eine Quellenangabe gefunden, hat irgendjemand eine?

However strenuous the times may be, we need to relax so as to gain insight into the reservoirs of feeling and dream which make us what we are.  I have read of a tribe in the Amazon Valley who on a long journey stop every little while in order to let their souls catch up with their bodies. What a refreshing instinct!  It is high time we stop our materialistic rushing to and fro and give the soul leisure to explore its treasures, recharge it faith and devise abilities to overtake the body.  The mute approach of things waiting for us to catch up with them is an endless challenge.

Helen Keller in Let us Have Faith

Self pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in the world.

Helen Keller – (1880 – 1968)

Today’s quote comes from Helen Keller.

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

Something to read:  

As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.  Helen Keller

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
Oscar Wilde

I read somewhere recently that quote have a special way of summing up how we feel about important things. And they do it in a simple, but powerful way. I found this video and enjoyed the quotes in it. I hope they will inspire you as well!

-Camber

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”
Helen Keller

Helen cuando tenía 8 años

La organización internacional de muditos está enojada porque acaban de contratar a la “pequeña miss sunshine”, Abigail Breslin, para interpretar a Helen Keller en la obra de teatro The Miracle worker en Broadway. Al parecer Hellen era cieguita y sorda, y ellos quieren a alguna actriz con esas características para que actue esa parte ya que consideran que una persona que tiene todas sus facultades no podría intepretarla de forma realista. Lo cual es una estupidez, por eso se llama actuar, que iba a hacer Tom Cruise si solo  pudiera interpretar gays que se hacen pasar por heterosexuales, o Cameron Díaz si solo pudiera hacer personajes de weras tontas, o si Megan Fox solo pudiera ser una come hombres super sexual en la pantalla grande o… bueno, hay otros artistas con verdadero talento  que no estan encasillados en el mismo personaje de su vida real, y hay que ser más tonto que sordo y ciego para pensar que solo así puede ser.

Y como no sé quien es Hellen, esto es lo que dice wikipedia: Helen Keller (*27 de junio de 1880 – 1 de junio de 1968) fue una autora, activista política, y oradora estadounidense sordociega. En 1957 fue presentada “La trabajadora milagrosa” un drama donde Hellen muestra sus primeras formas de comunicación cuando  era una niña, esta obra  llegó a ser un éxito de Broadway por casi dos años y también hay una película.

Por fin entiendo la letra de una estupida canción que no quitan del radio, que tiene una parte de muy mal gusto que dice “sshhh chica, cierra tus labios, hazle como Hellen Keller y habla con tus caderas” del grupo 3Oh!3; contra ellos deberían de irse la Sociedad de muditos

“The marvelous richness of the human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.”

~Helen Keller

Who is Helen Keller?:

• Born Helen Adams Keller on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama
• Lived on a plantation called Ivy Green
• Father ,Captain Aurther Miller, was editor of the North Alabamian
• Mother, Kate Adams Keller, was related to a few prominent New England families
• Helen could see and hear until 19 months when she contracted an illness, which left her hearing impaired and blind
• Illness was called “an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain,” which might have been Scarlet Fever or Meningitis
• She learned to communicate with the cook’s daughter Martha Washington using her own signs
• Known for being difficult to handle- her family acquired a teacher, Anne Sullivan, to help her learn
• Anne Sullivan had been visually impaired and was a previous student of the Perkins Institute for the Blind
• Anne started teaching Helen to communicate by spelling words into her hand in March, 1887
• May 1888 Keller attended the Perkins School for the Blind
• 1894 Keller and Sullivan moved to NY and went to the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf
• Attended Radcliffe College in 1900, a women’s liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a coordinate college to Harvard University
• Keller graduated from Radcliffe in 1904 as a 24-year-old
• Earned a Bachelor of Arts degree (cum laude), marking the first deaf blind person to achieve that end
• Keller became a famous writer, using a brail typewriter and regular typewriter
• She covered topics including blindness, deafness, socialism, social issues, and women’s rights.
• Helen and Anne remained companions (living,working and traveling together throughout their relationship)  until Anne’s death in 1936
• Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968, at Arcan Ridge

Achievements by Helen Keller:

• World famous speaker and author
• Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom
• Suffragette, Pacifist and radical Socialist 
• Co-founded Helen Keller International organization focusing on research in vision, health and nutrition
• Help to found American Civil Liberties Union
• Travelled to over 39 countries
• Awarded Gallup’s Most Widely Admired People of the 21st Century (1999)
• Face of quarter for Alabama (2003)
• Hospital dedicated to Keller in Sheffield, Alabama

Books By Helen Keller:

•  The Story of My Life (1903)(Sullivan and Macey helped her write this autobiography)
• The World I Live In
• Out of the Dark
• Light in My Darkness (formerly My Religion)
• Wrote eight other published books besides listed

Movies about Helen Keller:

• Deliverance (1919)
• Miracle Worker (1962–Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke)
• The Miracle Continues (1984)

Here is a clip of Helen with her teacher, friend and companion Anne Sullivan explaining how she taught Helen…

Here is a short documentary on Helen Keller…

What does this quote mean?:

“The marvelous richness of the human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.”

This quote has a lot of meaning when you look at Helen Keller’s life achievements. She was truly a remarkable example of what can be accomplished regardless of circumstances. She recognized, and probably was able to overcome many obstacles as a result of recognizing, that what makes succeeding feel so amazing and valuable and precious has a lot to do with getting there despite all of the obstacles that come along the way.

It makes sense that joy and success are much richer when you start off under dire circumstances. How many times have you heard stories of people who have done something amazing after an incredibly difficult road.

Perhaps, “there is no place like home” became much more important and lovely when Dorothy experienced all of the places away from home….and was she not richer for the adventure’s that she experienced finding her way back?

More importantly, Helen Keller is saying that it is really important to look at the challenges in your  life as opportunities to achieve greater things; that those challenges are meant to show you the richness that can only be experienced by overcoming them.

Other Things Helen Keller Said…

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another. Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.

True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. The only thing worse than being blind is having site but no vision.

The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart. Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

Once I knew only darkness and stillness… my life was without past or future… but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.

What kind of obstacles interferred in achieving your goals, and what did you do to overcome them? 

Sources:

http://www.afb.org/section.asp?SectionID=1&TopicID=129

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Sullivan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radcliffe_College

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/helen_keller.html

They sure don’t  make celebrities like they used to. Check out Helen Keller’s words today. Fierce. What an angel of American hope she was and still is,  through her words.

“It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.”

~ Helen Keller~

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature…. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

Helen Keller

In another example of what is wrong with America, there is another protest. It doesn’t have to do with the unemployment rate, the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, or the public healthcare option. Nope this has to do with the selection of Abigail Breslin, the girl from “Little Miss Sunshine”, to play Helen Keller in the upcoming Broadway production of “The Miracle Worker”. The Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts and other groups representing deaf and blind actors felt someone from they’re community should have been considered for the role. First off, who do they know who the producers did or did not consider for the role. Secondly, This is America. If the producers are putting up the money to front the show then they get the decision on who they want to cast in it. It is not open for debate. It really isn’t a hard choice. Let’s see should they hire someone nobody has heard of to try and turn a profit after investing a couple of million, or do they hire someone people have heard of to put asses in the seats. Hmmmm tough call on that one. Here’s a thought for the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, why don’t you invest in putting on a broadway production then you can decide who you want to put in it. This whole story is just……..retarded (didn’t want to exclude anyone).

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/movie-talk-abigail-breslin-helen-keller.html

Helen Keller är den kvinna i historien som jag fascinerats mest av. Döv såväl som blind lyckades hon med vad många av oss inte ens skulle ha drömt om ifall vi själva befunnit oss i hennes situation. För några dagar sedan läste jag att en staty av henne uppförts som minne utanför the Capitol, i Washington. (USA). Statyn efterliknar det ögonblick som hade som störst betydelse i hennes liv, då hon vid sju års ålder förstod innebörden av water [vatten]. Det är då hennes vän och ständiga följeslagare – lärarinnan Anne Sullivan förklarade ordet genom att exemplifiera det i praktiken där hon fick känna på vattnet vid en vattenpump. Ögonblicket förändrade Helen från en flicka som hade svårt att förmedla sig med sin familj till en vetgirig flicka som fullkomligt sög i sig kunskap genom det dövblinda hand-mun-systemet och senare braille-skrift.

Helen Keller, föddes 27 juni 1880 i Tuscumbia, Alabama, USA  i en välbärgad familj där fadern var Kapten drabbades av en febersjukdom då hon var 19 månader vilket berövade henne hörseln såväl som synen. Det faktum att Kellers föräldra hade ekonomiska förutsättning bidrog säkert till hennes möjligheter att nå de mål hon hade. Då bland annat blinda samt döva på den tiden betraktades som underlägsna den övriga befolkningen så fascinerades många av Kellers framsteg och hon var en inspiration för många.

Vid Perkins-institutet gav man uppdraget att försöka öppna Keller till den endast tjugo år gamla lärarinnan Anne Sullivan, vilket var början till ett 49 år långt samarbete. Sullivan var själv synskadad och en av Laura Bridgmans bästa vänner. Sullivan begärde och fick faderns tillstånd att isolera dottern från den övriga familjen i en liten stuga. Sullivans första mål var att få fram disciplin i den bortskämda Helen. Sullivan använde Samuel Howes metoder, och genom att i Helens hand rita symboler för olika föremål i deras närhet kunde den närmast utmattade Sullivan känna hur deras kontakt förstärktes. Wikipedia

Helen Keller tog en examen i litteratur vid Radcliffe. Det anmärkningsvärda anser jag ändå vara att Helen läste efter samma regler vid Radcliffe som de övriga studenterna – normal studietakt. Hon har beskrivit sitt collegeliv som långtråkigt eftersom hon inte hade tid med att umgås med sina studiekamrater. Trots sina funktionshinder tog Helen en Bachelors of Arts-examen (1904) i engelsk litteratur med betyget “berömlig i engelska språket”. I sanning en bedrift, med tanke på alla den extra energi hon måst ha lagt på studierna. Hon lämnade Radcliffe med kunskaper i grekiska, latin, tyska och franska. Senare lärde hon sig också italienska. Dessutom hann hon med att skriva ett stort antal böcker och kunde bland annat Brailleskrift på fyra olika språk.

Det är säkert få på vår jord som har räknar med att fara jorden runt, bland annat till Japan och  Nya Zealand trots sitt funktionshinder, eller skall jag skriva tack vare.  I många år arbetade hon aktivt i American Foundation for the Blind. Där hon höll föreläsningar, talade vid lunch- och middagstillställningar och deltog i mottagningar med syfte att skaffa bidragsgivare i gengäld försörjde föreningen henne. Hon beklagade att hon inte kunde arbeta för både de blinda som de döva.

I boken Min värld, som gavs ut 1909 beskriver hon hur mycket hon upplevde och lärde sig av en människa bara av att ta i hand. Att hennes dövblindhet inte begränsade henne, hon kände och märkte så mycket bara av sina andra sinnen. Helen Keller dog närmare 30 år efter sin ledsagare Anne Sullivan, den 1 juni 1968. Hennes sätt att tänka var den att hon hellre var helt blind snarare än döv, och hon betraktade dövheten som den värre olyckan därför att att vara blind gjorde kontakten med tingen med svårare medan att vara döv tog bort kontakten med människorna.

Läs även andra bloggares intressanta åsikter om Helen Keller, funktionshinder, dövblind

Källor:
Keller, Helen. (1909). Min värld. Stockholm: Geber Förlag. 134 s.
Bildkälla: http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller

I feel that Dlisted does such a good job speaking on this subject I’m just going to let them do it

The first book that made an impact on me was the story of Helen Keller.

When I was about seven or eight, my mother had me sit down to watch “The Miracle Worker” the story of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller. I was completely absorbed in the story and was fascinated with this “hand language” that Annie taught Helen.  The first word taught to her was; d-o-l-l.

A few days later mom and I were at the library. Mom, remembering my fascination with the story of Helen asked the librarian for a book recommendation. The Librarian (41 years ago and I can clearly see her face but not her name!!) shuffled through her cards (this was long before computer technolgy), walked down a row of books, and pulled one out. She handed it to me with a smile, and commented, “This is one of my favorites.”

Once home, I went to a favorite reading spot in the backyard (a stump of wood resembling the Phoenix) and sat down to read. I loved being inside the minds of the characters. I loved Annie challenges because of her upbringing. I was amazed at the intelligence of Helen Keller. And then, at the back of the book…illustrations of the American Sign Language alphabet.

That summer, at seven (or eight) years old, I taught myself how to shape the alphabet with my hands. (Before this, I was attempting to teach myself Egyptian hieroglyphics! Which I keep meaning to get back to…) By the time I began third grade, I was “proficient” in the American Sign Language alphabet and my multiplication tables (but that is because my dad offered to pay me $25 to learn my 1s-12s. Which I did, and I got my $25.) ((just goes to show that I will learn something for my own curiosity, as well as take someone else’s money.))

I began to teach my friends in the third grade the alphabet. “So much better than passing notes”, I explained. “We can talk and not make a sound”, I insisted.

They learned, and we begin to “talk” silently in class. This was a wonderful way to communicate…until the teacher noticed.

Mrs. Schneider. She is the one who introduced us to “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”! (another favorite book…I can still remember the CHEER that went out when Charlie unwraps the candy bar with the golden ticket…especially David Mack….) ah, but I wander off into another story.

So, Mrs. Schneider notices and sits down with me. Asks me to show her. I make my way A-Z forming the letters quickly and clearly with my right hand. She then asks me to show the entire class. And I did. Now with my secret language ‘out’, I no longer communicated with my friends in this way.

Over the years I continued to read books about Helen Keller. The list of her accomplishments is extensive. She was an author, speaker, suffragette, pacifist, radical Socialist and a birth control supporter.

Once in awhile…I drill myself. Good exercise for hands that pound away on a keyboard all day…actually – a few months ago I WAS able to use this as a way to communicate with a woman with hearing/speaking challenges. I was relieved, she appreciated that I could communicate with her.

So, for me…the first book on my “Books that influenced me” list is the story of Helen Keller.

College isn’t the place to go for ideas.

Helen Keller

You can see and learn American Sign Language alphabet here.

Helen Keller (R) with President J.F. Kennedy (1960)

I am one; but still I am one.

I cannot do everything, but still

I can do something.

I will not refuse to do the

something that I can do.

— Helen Keller

*********************************

What can YOU do?

What are you WAITING for?

DO SOMETHING!!

To borrow a statement from someone to illustrate a point.

The reason we borrow the passage is because we usually

quote an expert who can validate our point.

We do not seek financial advice from the beggar on the corner.

We do not seek out career advice from the unemployable.

We do not seek out marriage advice from the spinster or bachelor.

We do not seek emotional support from the mentally imbalanced.

We seek advice from those that have been there and done that.

“Those,” are the quotable experts.

Quotable ideas are shortcuts to explaining life.

A Higher Power gave all those experts the skills and the talents

to make those quotes so that we, who read them, do not have to

continue to struggle to figure out life on life’s terms.

“Sooner or later we all quote our mothers.”
~Bern Williams

Motivation and life, lived one day at a time, are the good

feelings that the best quotes inspire within us.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world
must be felt with the heart.”
- Helen Keller

A good quote can jump start a sleeping brain.

“Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t,
you are usually right.”
~ Henry Ford (1863-1947)

A good quote can motivate us to try a little harder.

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”

~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

A good quote can affect our attitude.

“And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.”
Confucius

A good quote can change our behaviors.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again
and expecting different results.”
Albert Einstein

Today, be original, or not, quote if you must, but always

be kind to the friend who is there for you.

Today, borrow what you must to make your point,

but give unconditional love to all, your Higher Power

wants you to do the next right thing in service to others.

Today, be patient and tolerant, nobody is perfect.

“Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.”
~ Simeon Strunsky

Today, be the person your Higher Power wants you to be, and

quote from every Good Book that the Spirit of the Universe

has inspired man to write.

Happiness is being properly quoted.

Happiness is helping someone help themselves.

Iris and ME (Michael Erb)