To extend friendship, to sustain others during dark times, is the very best of human nature. (Location 345)
Tags: friendship
Note: .friendship
‘Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible’ (Location 348)
Tags: quotes
Note: .quote
Seeing the sky for the first time since my accident four and a half weeks earlier lifted my heart in a way I can’t to this day really explain. It was like one step, however small and complicated, closer to being outside. (Location 383)
He asked about my accident and was so overcome by what had happened to me that I felt horrible for being so selfish in my own thoughts when I’d initially spotted him. (Location 397)
Note: You may be surprised by the empathy of others once you get to know them
Now, I believe that one of the most mood-enhancing feelings in life is to be grateful for even the smallest of things and, while I was still immobile and unable to breathe or eat unaided, unsure even of my own bladder and bowel movements, helpless in even the simplest tasks, I was hit by what felt like a mountain of gratitude. (Location 401)
Tags: gratitude
Note: .gratitude
I may have lost control of my arm and leg muscles but I haven’t lost control of my brain. I can make decisions and I can take control of my situation. (Location 524)
Note: You have the power to make decisions
My surgeon in Portugal had told my parents that he operated on at least twelve people a year who were injured by diving into the sea along that coast. (Location 591)
Note: 12 people are paralysed each year from diving into the sea along the Algarve
I began to push myself even harder, perhaps too hard – five-minutes-more-five-minutes-more was my internal mantra (Location 634)
Note: Focus on the next five minutes
I had concentrated on what I could do, not what I couldn’t do, and in that way I had made some significant progress. (Location 643)
Note: Focus on what is in your control
All of us had come to realise that we would become stronger if we focused on the things we were able to do, not the things we couldn’t. And for me, most significantly, I’d come to see that it is the art of striving that gives life meaning, that the greater the challenge ahead of me, the more alive I felt; that the greater the challenge, the greater the opportunity to achieve my goals, and the greater the goals, the better I could become. (Location 820)
Note: Focus on what you can do and set yourself challenges
and if there is one thing I have learned in this whole experience it is that being defeated in life is optional. If you set your mind to something and work hard to achieve it, fears can be overcome and personal success reached. (Location 979)
Note: Being defeated in life is optional .mindset
a woman who told me I ‘should have died’ and ‘didn’t deserve’ to be able to use my arms and legs after diving into shallow water. I was always shocked that people could behave that way but I decided early on to deal with them in a measured and calm manner, not to provoke them further, but to hopefully make them see that kindness is always the way. (Location 1008)
Note: Always try to remain calm
adversity has given me a gift; enabled me to discover an ability that I would never have otherwise known existed. And for that, I am deeply grateful. (Location 1146)
Note: Adversity may present us with an opportunity to discover new gifts
‘Accept and Adapt’ (Location 1163)
Tags: challenges
Note: .challenges
Acceptance gives you the permission and power to move on and, once you move on, you can adapt. (Location 1176)
Note: You need to accept before you can move on
Being grateful is about looking around, opening our eyes to all the little things that we might take for granted. (Location 1195)
Tags: gratitude
Note: .gratitude
give someone the care they need and then they can contribute to society; give them the bare minimum and they have to fight to survive and can’t contribute. (Location 1262)
There is no point dwelling on what might or could have been. The past has happened and cannot be changed; it can only be accepted. Life is much simpler and much happier when you always look at what you can do, not what you can’t do. Every day is a good day. (Location 1296)
Tags: positivity
Note: Focus on what you can do .mindset