Thank you, M.S. (?)

It's enough of a battle within ourselves, finding value in what we can do, versus feeling worthless because of what we can't do.

I feel like I'm fighting that battle with other people, who (at least I think) find my contributions deficient, because they don't involve schlepping stuff.

Now, there's a very long list of things I can do at my workplace. That nobody else can do. But the things that other people can do—for example, schlepping stuff—somehow, those seem to be more highly valued.

We're not dipping into the ADA-protected danger zone at the moment (at least, I don't think so). It's more of a "personal" perception of value. That somehow, as such things always do, gets converted to perception of "professional" value.

So now, I've got two problems: One, dealing with institutional perception of my professional value. There may be ways around this, and that's easy to work on. Copious communication, for one—better they should get tired of me talking about all the cool things I'm doing than to keep quiet about them and then get pissed that nobody knows about the things I didn't tell them.

And two, the much, much harder problem: Forgiving them for having a different understanding than I have.

Forgiving people is harder than dealing with being disabled. I loved playing the organ, I started doing it in—oh my, has it really been that long? 1973. I can't, any more. I'm still trying to come to true peace with that.

But forgiving other people for not seeing that what I can still do has as much inherent value as what I can no longer do—especially when what I can do, is something that I can do and I'm the only one who can do it that well, and what I can't do, other people can also do at a perfectly good level of quality—that's hard.

You can't change someone else's level of consciousness. It's just not possible. (Heck, it's hard enough to change your own.) Why I insist upon frustrating myself in the attempt to do that, and then becoming angry at them for not evolving at my whim, I don't know.

Not many things, by comparison, make having M.S. seem easy. But somehow... this does.

Well, I don't have the choice as to whether or not to have M.S., and I don't have the choice as to whether or not to evolve. Actually, I do, but I don't recommend that path, either. Choose that road, and eventually, the choice to the contrary will be made for you.

Which, now that I mention it... may be precisely what's happening right now.

Thank you, M.S.

Really? Wow.