Friends and Relations

Friends

All your friends gone? Deserted you? Don’t like gimps?

It’s easy to feel alone. Let’s assume the unlikely worst. You are alone, or virtually so. Your old friends have lost interest. What is difficult to see from your perspective as novice wheeler is that you can’t move in this world without meeting people and forming relationships. The only social tragedy which can befall you is not to move, to hide yourself. If you are visible, if you see anyone, then the only way you can prevent social ties from forming is to not want them.

“If a person can learn to like himself enough to project that feeling of good feelin’ about himself to other people, then it’s just a matter of time before the other people are going to come around and get to like him as a person. They’re not gonna look at that wheelchair anymore — they’re gonna like him as Joe or Bill or Suzanne of whoever.”

—Rick Harry