Difficulties arise in the lives of us all.

What is most important is dealing with the hard times， coping with the changes， and getting through to the other side where the sun is still shining just for you.

It takes a strong person to deal with tough times and difficult choices. But you are a strong person.

It takes courage. But you possess the inner courage to see you through.

It takes being an active participant in your life. But you are in the driver’s seat， and you can determine the direction you want tomorrow to go in.

Hang in there， and take care to see that you don’t lose sight of the one thing that is constant， beautiful， and true：

Everything will be fine， and it will turn out that way because of the special kind of person you are.

So...beginning today and lasting a lifetime through—Hang in there， and don’t be afraid to feel like the morning sun is shining just for you.

I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a freight yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty-two. I can vaguely remember the brightness of sunshine and what red color is. It would be wonderful to see again， but a calamity can do strange things to people.

It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn’t been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply， otherwise. I don’t mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.

Life， I believe， asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments， the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was bewildered and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me —a potential to live， you might call it — which I didn’t see， and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.

The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadn’t been able to do that， I would have collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self-confidence that helps me down a unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that： an assurance that I am， despite imperfections， a real， positive person that somewhere in the sweeping， intricate pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.

It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the most elementary things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball， I thought he was mocking me and I was hurt. “I can’t use this，” I said. “Take it with you，” he urged me， “and roll it around.” The words stuck in my head. “Roll it around！” By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible： playing baseball. At Philadelphia’s Overbrook School for the Blind I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.

All my life I have set ahead of is a series of goals and then tried to reach them， one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good to try for something I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.

生活中困難在所難免。

最重要的是要挺過艱難的時刻，積極應對種種變故，沖破黎明前的黑暗，你終會看到只屬于自己的燦爛陽光。

只有強者才能勇敢直面困難時刻，并 做出艱難的抉擇。而你正是這樣一位強者。

要有勇氣。但你擁有披荊斬棘的勇氣。

你必須在這場人生游戲中積極主動，而且你正在駕馭這場游戲，并決定著自己明天前進的方向。

堅持再堅持，別讓你的視線離開了那不變的美好真理：

一切都會好的，因為你是如此的與眾不同。

因此，從今天開始，一直到生命的終點——堅持住，不必懷疑，朝陽為你而升起。

4歲那年在大西洋城，我從貨場的一節(jié)車廂上摔下來，頭先著地，于是雙目失明。現在我已經32歲了。我還模糊地記得陽光是多么燦爛，紅色是多么鮮艷。能恢復視覺固然好，但災難也能對人產生奇妙的作用。

有一天我突然想到，倘若我不是盲人，我或許不會變得像現在這樣熱愛生活?，F在我相信生活，但我不能肯定如果自己是明眼人，會不會像現在這樣深深地相信生活。這并不意味著我寧愿成為盲人，而只是意味著失去視力使我更加珍惜自己剩下的其他能力。

我認為，生活要求人不斷地自我調整以適應現實。人愈能及時地進行調整，他的個人世界便愈有意義。調整決非易事。我曾感到茫然害怕，但我很幸運，父母和老師在我身上發(fā)現了某種東西——可以稱之為活下去的潛力吧——而我自己卻沒有發(fā)現。他們激勵我誓與失明拼搏到底。

我必須學會的最艱難的一課就是相信自己，這是基本條件。如果做不到這一點，我的精神就會崩潰，只能坐在前門廊的搖椅中度過余生。相信自己并不僅僅指支持我獨自走下陌生樓梯的那種自信，那只是一部分。我指的是大事：是堅信自己雖然有缺陷，卻是一個真正的有進取心的人；堅信在蕓蕓眾生錯綜復雜的格局當中，自有我可以安身立命的一席之地。

我花了很長時間才樹立并不斷加強這一信念。這要從最簡單的事做起。有一次一個人給我一個室內玩的棒球，我以為他在嘲笑我，心里很難受?！拔也荒苡眠@個?！蔽艺f?！澳隳萌?，”他竭力勸我，“在地上滾。”他的話在我腦子里生了根?！霸诘厣蠞L！” 滾球使我聽見它朝哪兒滾動。我馬上想到一個我曾認為不可能達到的目標：打棒球。在費城的奧弗布魯克盲人學校，我發(fā)明了一種很受人歡迎的棒球游戲，我們稱它為地面球。

我這一輩子給自己樹立了一系列的目標，然后努力去達到，一次一個。我必須了解自己能力有限，若開始就知道某個目標根本達不到卻硬要去實現，那不會有任何好處，因為那只會帶來失敗的苦果。我有時也失敗過，但一般來說總有進步。