Dr. Alia’s talk makes me think of Nicholas James Vujicic, the Australian limbless inspirational speaker. He was born with a rare birth defect that is characterized by the absence of four limbs. It is called tetra-amelia syndrome. Instead of seeing himself as a disabled, he overcomes his physical limitations and lives an astonishingly, inspiring life. For instances, he has graduated from Griffith University with a double degree, founded his own company, engaged in giving motivational talks, wrote some of the best-selling books and even starred in a short film ‘The Butterfly Circus’. Today, he’s married and becomes a father of two children. His favourite hobbies are playing golf, swimming and surfing. He manages to perform all these things that we would expect from an ‘able’ person. I should certainly feel ashamed of myself for not knowing how to swim. He breaks the stereotypes and changes the perception of the world about people with disability. Nick once wrote in his book “Life Without Limits” to encourage people to possess a correct mindset, “I may have absolutely no control over what happens to us, but we can control how we respond. If we choose the right attitude, we can rise above whatever challenges we face.” He uses his personal anecdotes to show us how positive mindset changed his …show more content…
I myself have once gone through a mindset-changing experience. I am a STPM leaver. Way back in my high school days, I always wished and wanted to be in private college or matriculation college, because I thought taking sixth form was time-consuming as compared to A-level and matriculation. I was told that STPM was a real disaster and STPM leaver always failed to compete with those matriculation leavers in getting local university offer. I was deeply depressed and discouraged at the beginning of my first semester. My whole world was full of the related negative thoughts. All I could see were tons of assignments, experiment reports, presentations and the stressful, brain-crashing quarterly, mid-year, and year-end exams. That was the time when I wanted two Sundays and no Mondays. The situation turned better after I apprehended that I couldn’t alter the reality and I learned to let go of my negative thoughts. My mindset changed unconsciously and I started to enjoy my sixth form life. By now, I will say that this one and a half years constituting my sixth form life are, undoubtedly, the climax of my school life, the most thrilling part. I realized that what have I thought before are all myths and I was just being haunted by my mindset all the time. The recollection of the fond memories of those bygone days never fails to bring a smile to my