Dealing With Adversity

No one knows why incidents happen in life; they just occur. Adversity is a hurdle everyone goes through, whether it is a large hurdle or a small one. Regardless of the person, adversity is an inevitable struggle to face and can be dealt with in more ways than one. Three people presented with adversity who found ways to surmount the difficulty, each in different ways, are Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Yoshiko Uchida, and Aimee Mullins, a record setting athlete, actress, and model that lost her legs below the knee. As the President of the United States at the time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt dealt with adversity in a way most will not have to. In his Day of Infamy Speech he addressed the challenges out to the people of the United States. The Japanese …show more content…
Uchida, alongside many other Japanese-Americans, was sent into an internment camp with her family after the attack the Japanese made on the United States, leaving them to face the tough conditions of the camp. In her memoir from Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese-American Family Uchida entertains readers with a story of her experiences and the adversity she faced during this time. When confronting these challenges, Uchida felt disappointed and rather annoyed over the whole situation. All these people were removed from their homes because they were not trusted. In Yoshiko Uchida’s view, “Nothing in the camp was ready. Everything was only half-finished. I wondered how much the nation’s security would have been threatened had the Army permitted us to remain in our homes a few more days until the camps were adequately prepared for occupancy by families” (302). Uchida, her family, and other Japanese-Americans were put in a position where they had to accustom themselves into new living conditions that the government wasn’t bothered with to fix up or make comfortable enough for them to live in. Little by little the situation seemed to get better. Uchida reports that the food slowly improved and installments were added to better enhance their living conditions, such as tubs of soapy water to wash their dish wear (Uchida 302). She seemed to become more optimistic as time …show more content…
She was forced to face the difficulty of being born with no fibula bones. Her legs were unfortunately removed below her knees when she was just a year old; as a result, she had to learn to do ordinary activities such as walking, biking, swimming, and playing sports using leg prosthetics (Galant, Richard). Even so, while facing these challenges Mullins seems to have a positive outlook on the situation and seemingly regards it in an accepting manner. She overcame the challenge by not letting her setback get the better of her; therefore, continuing on with her life to achieve great goals, no matter her obstacle, such as setting a record as an athlete, modeling, and acting. Mullins emphasizes that “What I 've tried to do, what I 've been fortunate to do, is to live my life and create my life as I 've wanted to create it” (Galant, Richard). She wants people to know that no matter what has happened to her she can continue on with her life undertaking acts just as everyone else does them. It was important for Aimee Mullins to overcome this adversity to create awareness over her situation and show that using the word disabled so freely to label someone’s importance or worth isn’t right. Clearly, Mullins had a determined mindset when winning over this setback and pursued to live her life as she aspires to no matter what held her