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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 an 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.
4岁那年在大西洋城，我从货场的一辆火车上摔下来，头先着地，于是双目失明。现在我已经32岁了。我还模糊地记得阳光是多么灿烂，红色是多么鲜艳。能恢复视觉固然好，但灾难也能对人产生奇妙的作用。
有一天我突然想到，倘若我不是盲人，我或许不会变得像现在这样热爱生活。现在我相信生活，但我不能肯定如果我不是盲人，会不会像现在这样深深地相信生活。这并不意味着我宁愿成为盲人，而只是意味着失去视力使我更加珍惜自己其他的能力。
我认为，生活要求人不断地自我调整以适应现实。人越能及时地进行调整，他的个人世界便越有意义。调整决非易事。我曾感到茫然害怕，但我很幸运，父母和老师在我身上发现了某种东西——可以称之为活下去的潜力吧——而我自己却没有发现。他们激励我誓与失明拼搏到底。
我必须学会的最艰难的一课就是相信自己，这是基本条件。如若做不到这一点，我的精神就会崩溃，只能坐在前门廊的摇椅中度过余生。相信自己并不仅仅指支持我独自走下陌生的楼梯的那种自信，那是一部分。我指的是大事：是坚信自己虽然有缺陷，却是一个真正的有进取心的人；坚信在芸芸众生错综复杂的格局当中，自有我可以安身立命的一席之地。
我花了很长时间才树立并不断加强这一信念。这要从最简单的事做起。有一次一个人给我一个室内玩的棒球，我以为他在嘲笑我，心里很难受。“我不能玩这个。”我说。“你拿去。”他竭力劝我，“在地上滚。”他的话在我脑子里生了根。“在地上滚！” 滚球使我听见它朝哪儿滚动。我马上想到一个我曾认为不可能达到的目标：打棒球。在费城的奥弗布鲁克盲人学校，我发明了一种很受人欢迎的棒球游戏，我们称它为地面球。
我这一辈子给自己树立了一系列的目标，然后努力去达到，一次一个。我必须了解自己能力有限，若开始就知道某个目标根本达不到却硬要去实现，那不会有任何好处，因为那只会带来失败的苦果。我有时也会失败，但一般来说总有进步。
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 an 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.
4岁那年在大西洋城，我从货场的一辆火车上摔下来，头先着地，于是双目失明。现在我已经32岁了。我还模糊地记得阳光是多么灿烂，红色是多么鲜艳。能恢复视觉固然好，但灾难也能对人产生奇妙的作用。
有一天我突然想到，倘若我不是盲人，我或许不会变得像现在这样热爱生活。现在我相信生活，但我不能肯定如果我不是盲人，会不会像现在这样深深地相信生活。这并不意味着我宁愿成为盲人，而只是意味着失去视力使我更加珍惜自己其他的能力。
我认为，生活要求人不断地自我调整以适应现实。人越能及时地进行调整，他的个人世界便越有意义。调整决非易事。我曾感到茫然害怕，但我很幸运，父母和老师在我身上发现了某种东西——可以称之为活下去的潜力吧——而我自己却没有发现。他们激励我誓与失明拼搏到底。
我必须学会的最艰难的一课就是相信自己，这是基本条件。如若做不到这一点，我的精神就会崩溃，只能坐在前门廊的摇椅中度过余生。相信自己并不仅仅指支持我独自走下陌生的楼梯的那种自信，那是一部分。我指的是大事：是坚信自己虽然有缺陷，却是一个真正的有进取心的人；坚信在芸芸众生错综复杂的格局当中，自有我可以安身立命的一席之地。
我花了很长时间才树立并不断加强这一信念。这要从最简单的事做起。有一次一个人给我一个室内玩的棒球，我以为他在嘲笑我，心里很难受。“我不能玩这个。”我说。“你拿去。”他竭力劝我，“在地上滚。”他的话在我脑子里生了根。“在地上滚！” 滚球使我听见它朝哪儿滚动。我马上想到一个我曾认为不可能达到的目标：打棒球。在费城的奥弗布鲁克盲人学校，我发明了一种很受人欢迎的棒球游戏，我们称它为地面球。
我这一辈子给自己树立了一系列的目标，然后努力去达到，一次一个。我必须了解自己能力有限，若开始就知道某个目标根本达不到却硬要去实现，那不会有任何好处，因为那只会带来失败的苦果。我有时也会失败，但一般来说总有进步。