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1、TED英语演讲稿：不幸可能是个机会 介绍：残奥会短跑冠军Aimee Mullins天生没有腓骨，从小就要学习靠义肢走路和奔跑。现在，她不但是短跑选手、演员、模特，还是一位稳健的演讲者。她不喜爱字典中 “disabled”这个词，因为负面词汇足以毁掉一个人。不过，坦然面对不幸，你会发觉等候你的是更多的机会。Id like to share with you a discovery that I made a few months ago while writing an article for Italian Wired. I always keep my thesaurus handy whe
2、never Im writing anything, but Id already finished editing the piece, and I realized that I had never once in my life looked up the word disabled to see what Id find.Let me read you the entry. Disabled, adjective: crippled, helpless, useless, wrecked, stalled, maimed, wounded, mangled, lame, mutilat
3、ed, rundown, wornout, weakened, impotent, castrated, paralyzed, handicapped, senile, decrepit, laidup, doneup, donefor, donein crackedup, countedout; see also hurt, useless and weak. Antonyms, healthy, strong, capable. I was reading this list out loud to a friend and at first was laughing, it was so
4、 ludicrous, but Id just gotten past mangled, and my voice broke, and I had to stop and collect myself from the emotional shock and impact that the assault from these words unleashed.You know, of course, this is my raggedy old thesaurus so Im thinking this must be an ancient print date, right? But, i
5、n fact, the print date was the early 1980s, when I would have been starting primary school and forming an understanding of myself outside the family unit and as related to the other kids and the world around me. And, needless to say, thank God I wasnt using a thesaurus back then. I mean, from this e
6、ntry, it would seem that I was born into a world that perceived someone like me to have nothing positive whatsoever going for them, when in fact, today Im celebrated for the opportunities and adventures my life has procured.So, I immediately went to look up the 2021 online edition, expecting to find
7、 a revision worth noting. Heres the updated version of this entry. Unfortunately, its not much better. I find the last two words under Near Antonyms, particularly unsettling: whole and wholesome.So, its not just about the words. Its what we believe about people when we name them with these words. It
8、s about the values behind the words, and how we construct those values. Our language affects our thinking and how we view the world and how we view other people. In fact, many ancient societies, including the Greeks and the Romans, believed that to utter a curse verbally was so powerful, because to
9、say the thing out loud brought it into existence. So, what reality do we want to call into existence: a person who is limited, or a person whos empowered? By casually doing something as simple as naming a person, a child, we might be putting lids and casting shadows on their power. Wouldnt we want t
10、o open doors for them instead?One such person who opened doors for me was my childhood doctor at the A.I. duPont Institute in Wilmington, Delaware. His name was Dr. Pizzutillo, an Italian American, whose name, apparently, was too difficult for most Americans to pronounce, so he went by Dr. P. And Dr
11、. P always wore really colorful bow ties and had the very perfect disposition to work with children.I loved almost everything about my time spent at this hospital, with the exception of my physical therapy sessions. I had to do what seemed like innumerable repetitions of exercises with these thick,
12、elastic bandsdifferent colors, you knowto help build up my leg muscles, and I hated these bands more than anythingI hated them, had names for them. I hated them. And, you know, I was already bargaining, as a five yearold child, with Dr. P to try to get out of doing these exercises, unsuccessfully, o
13、f course. And, one day, he came in to my sessionexhaustive and unforgiving, these sessionsand he said to me, Wow. Aimee, you are such a strong and powerful little girl, I think youre going to break one of those bands. When you do break it, Im going to give you a hundred bucks.Now, of course, this wa
14、s a simple ploy on Dr. Ps part to get me to do the exercises I didnt want to do before the prospect of being the richest fiveyearold in the second floor ward, but what he effectively did for me was reshape an awful daily occurrence into a new and promising experience for me. And I have to wonder tod
15、ay to what extent his vision and his declaration of me as a strong and powerful little girl shaped my own view of myself as an inherently strong, powerful and athletic person well into the future.This is an example of how adults in positions of power can ignite the power of a child. But, in the prev
16、ious instances of those thesaurus entries, our language isnt allowing us to evolve into the reality that we would all want, the possibility of an individual to see themselves as capable. Our language hasnt caught up with the changes in our society, many of which have been brought about by technology. Certainly, from a medical standpoint, my legs, laser surgery for vision impairment, titanium knees and hip replaceme
