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Fellow Toastmasters, honored guests. Have you ever considered what your
life might be like if you could go back in time and change just one thing? Someone
once asked me if, of given the opportunity, I would go back to life the way life
was before I lost my vision. This is an expanded version of what I told them. If
I hadn't gone blind, I would be an IT professional. I love technology, and I
taught myself to type and wrote my first batch files when I was only 12 years old.
My first job was at a Chamber of Commerce in the small town of Milton-Freewater
in Eastern Oregon, where I was affectionately known as "the computer guy."
Later I would be working in the IT department at a midsize nonprofit in
Pendleton. Unfortunately, my private my progressive
vision loss which began when I was about 15 years old
oh paste accessible computing technology and I abandoned that career goal abandon
a lot of things if I hadn't gone blind I would be a competitive video game player
I was raised with a Nintendo controller in my hand and they spend most of my
free time and much of my homework time in front of a screen nowadays
competitive video gaming or eSports as they're known are a multi-billion dollar
business and I would love to have a piece of that pie but again my
progressive vision loss outpaced accessible video game design and
abandoned that hobby but I found something to put into place I found a
love for tabletop games board games such as Settlers of Catan and role-playing
games like Dungeons and Dragons I discovered that I could adapt these
games to meet my needs rather than wait for a game designer to figure out what I
need nowadays I have my own company and I
design and publish role-playing games and I actively create what I love rather
than passively consume it if I hadn't gone blind I would be cripplingly shy I
am a raging introvert and I once spent over five minutes trying to build up the
courage to make a phone call that lasted one minute I still remember a turning
point in my life I was going through orientation and mobility training with
the organ Commission for the blind and I was tasked with finding them won't know
the team won't know the library in downtown Portland armed was only the
address and my knowledge of the Portland addressing system I set off to downtown
to find my lane I disembark from the max and I found exuberant life people
buzzing back and forth as they went about their daily lives and I thought to
myself I need to ask one of these people for help it's part of my mobility
instructors evil scheme to get me to break out of my shell and ask for
assistance but every one of these people seems so busy and I didn't want to stop
and ask somebody to help me with my needs when clearly they had other things
that were important to do I noticed somebody standing on a street
corner who wasn't moving very far very fast so I thought okay if anybody's
gonna be it's going to be them I walked up to them and said excuse me I'm trying
to get to the Multnomah library can he point me in the right direction and he
turned to me with a smile and his voice and said I'm sorry but I'm not from
around here I have no idea where I'm at and no idea where I'm going either
but I have an address and I asked for a minute that's okay I think just told me
what street corner of mine I'm sure I can find my way he happily obliged
and before he parted ways he stopped me and said excuse me I need to find this
address you wouldn't have to know where it is with you sure it's about two
blocks down take a left it's on the right side the street will be about
halfway down that experience taught me two things first it was okay for me to
stop and talk to strangers and second I had knowledge and skills that were worth
sharing if I hadn't gone blind I would be a follower a shy video game playing
IT professional doesn't exactly conjure images of confidence and assertiveness
but a series of life experiences has taught me to advocate for myself to
advocate for other probabilities and I learned that it was okay to speak up
I've now given over a dozen talks on panels about people with disabilities
and have even given an extemporaneous speech you know to a crowd of over 100
people so and less than a month I'm going to graduate from George Fox
University with my bachelor's degree in management and organizational leadership
which sighted or blind I never would have seen coming someone once asked me
if given the opportunity I would go back to the way things were before I lost my
vision and this is what I told them if I hadn't gone blind I wouldn't be me thank
you