People often ask me about perseverance, how to push yourself through the physical and mental challenges that life puts in front of you. They ask me about this because I’ve climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and because I’ve completed the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. To me though, the real reason I understand perseverance is because every morning, I get out of bed.
When you live with cerebral palsy, the idea of perseverance is a little different from because it’s a condition that impacts my most basic motor skills, and in my case makes the act of simply walking quite a painful experience.

Try holding your hand tight in a fist for as long as possible. Really concentrate and push yourself. Feel that burn start in your fingers, moving down your wrist into your forearm. That’s how my feet, calves, hamstrings, quads, glutes, and lower back feel all the time. There’s no loosening, no release. Every morning it feels as if I hit the gym the night before for the first time ever, really pushing it to the limit and now my body is mad at me … really mad.

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