A very good question, right? Actually I can't take credit for coming up with it; instead, some of my Moebius friends on Facebook the other day were discussing it. And I thought: what a good topic for a blog post. So here goes: why DO we have Moebius? What reasons could there be? Let's see how many I can come up with. After you've read this, feel free to come up with your own.
1. But first, it's important to say: there's no one answer that will fit all. Some of you believe things happen for a reason. Others of you perhaps don't. Some of you believe in God. Others of you don't. Obviously that's going to impact how you see this. All of you are entitled to your own view here. But, having said that, I think...
2. Moebius Syndrome can make you tougher. It can make you better. We have obstacles in life to overcome, prejudices to battle. We overcome them. It's made us stronger.
3. By being out there in the world, by letting others know that yes, we have Moebius, but here we are...we raise awareness. We make sure others know that yes, there are people out there who have physical differences. But we're people too, we have accomplishments of our own, and you should look AT us, not away from us.
4. And by doing number 3, we help reduce prejudice in this country--even if just a little bit--against those with physical differences.
5. Many of you have reported that your friends and acquaintances say that you, with your Moebius, and your triumphs, have inspired them. That maybe it gets them to try harder, to do more, since they see what you can do. That's certainly a good thing.
6. I think Moebius actually can make us MORE aware of other peoples' facial expressions and the feelings and emotions they signal to us. That might seem strange, given that often we can NOT show facial expression. But that doesn't matter. We're still human. We still have feelings. And I think we're always curious as to how other people see us (maybe sometimes we're AFRAID of how others are seeing us, even though often we don't need to be). And we know that one way to see how others are feeling is...watch their face and their body language. We're pretty good at it.
7. Thus, that can mean that maybe having Moebius makes us pretty good judges of character. Of course, we want to have friends. But we want good friends, legitimate persons whom we can trust; we don't want people who will pretend to be nice to our face, but then behind our backs will slam us or make fun of us. Maybe sometimes that makes us too tough of a judge; perhaps at times it makes us too reluctant to have friends. But many of my Moebius friends are good judges of character, and that's a good thing.
8. And remember too--people today love to talk about the value of "diversity." But diversity isn't only about race, ethnicity, or gender; it can also involve other things--such as the kinds of physical differences that we bring to the table. And we remind people of that.
9. How about this? Also, Moebius has allowed so many of us to be part of a big support network; it's allowed us all to be part of building one, to show us and others how the internet and social media and other communication tools can be used to help people get in touch and support one another. That's a great lesson. Many will benefit from it.
Well, this is what I can think of right now. I bet many of you can think of more. Let us know!
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