When Our Story Needs to Be Written

 

I’ve tried restarting my blog before. Sometimes I get going and then stop; other times, it never really amounts to much. This time, I thought I’d approach it a little differently. Why not write about things that are useful to others while also giving myself an opportunity to reflect on my own life?

If it helps someone else, that’s great. If it simply helps me organize my thoughts, history, and background, that’s worthwhile, too.

I’ve encountered people going through their own trials and tribulations who have looked at me and said, “You know what, Josh? You’re awesome.” Somehow, I’ve become an inspiration to people even though I’ve never really intended to be one.

But that raises a question: why would my story matter to somebody else?

My uncle Tim once told me that I was amazing and inspirational. My response was to point out that he’d lost a leg during his life. I’d never had two fully functioning eyes, so I’d never experienced losing something I’d once had. I’d simply learned to live with my circumstances.

I told him that I thought losing something and having to learn to live without it was much more harrowing than never having it in the first place.

Was I inspirational? Maybe. But from my perspective, I was just trying to live my life.

Perhaps that’s part of what makes these conversations so interesting. We often see other people’s lives differently from how they see their own. Something that seems extraordinary to an outsider can feel like an ordinary part of getting through the day to the person experiencing it.

With that in mind, I think it’s worth starting at the beginning.

I was born to a mother who never expected to have children. She didn’t think she would be a great parent, but, as she would later put it, she was blessed with me. I was born three months prematurely, and my biological father had left the state, leaving my mother to raise me on her own.

My mother had experienced her own difficulties growing up, including struggles with addiction and other challenges. She didn’t want to repeat the treatment she’d experienced herself, so she worked on managing her anger and made sure I received the help I needed.

This was the late 1980s, and things were different then. My premature birth brought significant medical challenges. My lungs were underdeveloped, and my retinas had detached, leaving me with substantial medical needs from the very beginning.

My treatment also connected me to medical research that contributed to the broader understanding and treatment of retinal conditions in premature infants. Two doctors, Dr. Joe Robertson and Dr. Earl Palmer, played important roles in my care, including work involving cryotherapy for retinal disease. Dr. Robertson would later become president of Oregon Health & Science University.

These doctors helped preserve the sight I have today. They also gave my mother something important: reassurance that I could do things for myself if I was given the opportunity.

When she asked them what I might be capable of, their message was essentially that I could do whatever I put my mind to, provided I had the opportunity to try.

That idea would be tested throughout my childhood.

At school, there were people who looked at my vision difficulties and decided that certain things would be too hard for me. They would suggest letting someone else do the work instead. As a kid, I often wanted things to be easier, so I sometimes went along with what the school staff suggested.

My mother continually pushed back. She believed I needed the opportunity to do things myself, even when doing so was difficult.

Eventually, I began to understand what she had been trying to teach me. I started putting more effort into the things I did rather than accepting that something was beyond my ability simply because it was harder for me.

That lesson has stayed with me. It hasn’t made everything easy, but learning to work through challenges has helped me develop the skills and independence I rely on today.

Some of the men my mother was with when I was growing up weren’t necessarily the greatest people. But many of them demonstrated a strong work ethic. When my stepfather came into my life, he reinforced that lesson. He’s one of the best men my mother ever had in her life, and he taught me that, whatever else might be happening, you still have responsibilities. You have to contribute. You can’t always do only the bare minimum and expect everything to work out, because other people will depend on you.

That applies whether you’re a supervisor, an employee, or someone doing work that nobody else notices. Your work matters.

My mother lived that principle, too. She repeatedly sacrificed her own time to help other people. She volunteered with SE Works and its reentry programs, helping disadvantaged women work toward escaping abuse and difficult circumstances, finding employment, receiving training, and building more independent lives.

Looking back, I see a common thread running through these experiences: learning to live with difficult circumstances while finding ways to help other people, even when your own circumstances aren’t ideal.

That’s a theme I hope to explore throughout this series. I’ll write about my experiences, the people who influenced me, the work I’ve done, and the things I’ve helped build. I don’t expect every story to be extraordinary, and I don’t expect every reader to find something in every post.

But if sharing these experiences helps somebody recognize that their own life has value—that difficult circumstances don’t automatically determine what they can contribute—then I think the effort will have been worthwhile.

We all have hard times. We all have limitations. We all need help from other people at some point.

And we can still find ways to contribute to the lives around us, as well as our own.

For now, I think that’s a good place to start.