ISSUE 7 | PURPOSE.

This week I took down memory lane and visited my old Uni to catch up with some of the staff. Apart from delayed and cancelled trains and the heat I got the opportunity to think and reflect on a couple of conversations I had this week. One of the things I was thinking about was purpose and acceptance which I want to talk about in this week's newsletter.

Not just a film review:

Wonder is a film based on a book written by Writer R.J. Palacio, based on a young person with craniofacial disorder. The story itself is not based on a true story, it is, however, written after Palacio's son cried after seeing a child with craniofacial disorder and she "pushed him away to protect the girl from his reaction". Palacio talks in the interview with ABC News about how she spent the rest of the day thinking about all the things she wished she had said and done differently.

The other day when trying to explain to someone why I think the discrimination I have faced in recent months has hurt more than it has in the past. I began thinking about the bullying I experienced in school when similarly to August the main character in Wonder, kids would want to come near me out of fear they'd get sick and how this fed into their assumptions about my disability.

The conversation then went on to what my plans were after I finish my Master's and honestly I can't think past the next 48 hours if I am honest. But when I got asked this I muddled my way through to answering the question. But now my answer if my coherent. It is to show that disability doesn't make me or anyone else less human and less than when it comes to achieving anything. If you told me at age 6 I would be weeks away from finishing my second degree I would have laughed because I had been taught at that age by many that I could only achieve so much.

In the film, the headteacher says, 'Auggie can't change the way he looks. Maybe we can change the way we see' when responding to comments made by one parent who couldn't look past how August looked and only saw him as a problem.

I want to end with a clip which features David Flood who talks about his son Justin. When describing his son he says Justin is Awesome. In his speech, David describes a time when on one day in particular his son called him 32 times, in eight hours not because there was no one for him to speak to it was that none of the 2,000 students would talk to him. David shares his frustration and confusion as to how this could happen. As I think anyone would. In the video, David talks about how on one Halloween two kids turned up and asked Justin to go treat or treating with them. David says this wasn't planned they just showed up.

Before the clip finishes, he shares a conversation he had with his mum before she passed away in which she said "your life is not about you, your life is about Justin, your life is about Sarah, your life is about Mary your wife, your life is about your brothers and sisters and your friends and your family and the kids you get to go out and talk to, stop thinking your life is about you."

Right at the end of the film, a quote about greatness is shared and it's how I will end today's newsletter but before I do. I want to share my own reminder to anyone reading that you are awesome, you are cool, and just keep being you because the world needs you. It doesn't matter how slow or fast you go just do what works for you.

“?‘Greatness,’ wrote Beecher, ‘lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength.… He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts …’?” And again, out of the blue, he got all choked up. He put his two index fingers over his mouth for a second before continuing.”

―?R.J. Palacio,?Wonder

All the best,

Chandy