This video is about a woman named, Aimee Mullins who was born without shin bones and how she overcame her disability. She is a model, actor, and an advocate for women and next generation prosthetics. In the video she shows the definition of the word disabled and it shows how society views people with disabilities. She compares the definition of the word from the early 1980s to the definition from 2009. There was very little change between the two definitions from these two time periods. She goes on to talk about how this word, disabled, affects people who live with these every day. The words that come out of these definitions, like useless, mutilated, and etc. mislabel these people in society. When she met the doctor that had delivered her he said that she made a liar out of him by exceeding his expectations because he was the one that had to deliver the bad news that her legs had to be amputated from below the knees. She goes on to say that we enhance ourselves through adversity and that no one should let go of their dreams even though it seems to be an impossible goal. “Adversity isn’t an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. It’s part of our life. I think of it like my shadow — sometimes I see a lot of it, sometimes there’s very little, but it’s always with me.” (Aimee Mullins).
Only through her persistence she rose above her disabilities to become successful in her career and as an example that people can over many obstacles in their life. Her struggle has led her to become a successful person. Persistence and enthusiasm played a large role in her successful life. When she was 5 the doctor came by her physical therapy session and told her that she would break the rubber bands that they used to strengthen legs to work with the prosthetics. That showed that the doctor believed that she would excel in her therapy and make something of herself.
In this video, I think there are may be just a few alternatives that she could have chosen. She seems to be a confident woman who has a lot of courage even though her life was probably full of sadness and probably not a good school life because the way kids react to people with disabilities. She probably could have gone into more of her childhood to show where she came from and how she handled her school life before she excelled in her life. This background would have probably showed that character and how she got to where she is now. Those would be the only areas that would probably make her stand out more.
She personifies the qualities of both persistence and enthusiasm. You can see it in how she presents herself to the audience and how well she handles herself when presenting her speech. She makes it clear that if you have enough attitude you could pull off anything you set your mind to. Aimee Mullins comes off as a very persistent and enthusiastic in how she sees life and she is trying to get others to see that you can overcome anything you put your mind to so they can see the world the same way she sees it.
References
Aimee Mullins: The opportunity of adversity. (n.d.). TED: Ideas worth spreading. Retrieved December 19, 2013, from http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_the_opportunity_of_adversity.

Enthusiasm. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster. Retrieved December 18, 2013, from http://www.merriam-webster.com

Persistence. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster. Retrieved December 18, 2013, from http://www.merriam-webster.com