本文的作者罗伯特·奥尔曼是位盲人，他在运动、法律以及体育广播三个不同的领域都获得了极大的成功。他认为盲人不应该只从盲人身上寻求安慰，而应该走出家门与世人接触。本文文字朴实，生动流畅，其间所含的人生哲理对我们颇有启迪。
　　I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a boxcar 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： the assurance that I am， despite imperfections， a real， positive person and 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.
　　四歲那年在大西洋城，我从货运场的一辆棚车上摔下来，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。能恢复视力固然好，但灾难也能对人产生奇妙的作用。
　　几天前我突然想到，倘若我不是盲人，我或许不会变得像现在这样热爱生活。现在我对生活充满信心，但我不能肯定如果自己视力正常，会不会像现在这样如此相信生活。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方面的能力。
　　我相信，生活要求人不断地自我调整以适应现实。一个人愈能及时地进行调整，他的个人世界便愈有意义。调整绝非易事。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。他们激励我与失明拼搏到底。
　　我必须学的最艰难的一课就是相信自己，这是基本条件。如果做不到这一点，我的精神就会崩溃，只能坐在门廊前面的摇椅中度过余生。当我提到相信自己时，并不仅仅指要有支撑我独自走下陌生的楼梯的那种自信，那只是一部分。我指的是比那更重要的事：虽然自身有缺陷，却坚信自己是一个真正的有进取心的人；坚信在芸芸众生中，在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加强这一信念。这要从最基本的事做起。曾经有一个人给我一个室内玩的棒球，我以为他在嘲笑我，我心里很难受。“我不会玩这个。”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！”把球放在地上滚，我可以听见它滚到了哪里。于是我知道了如何去实现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。
　　这辈子我给自己制定了一系列的目标，然后努力去实现它们，一次实现一个。我必须知道自己能力有限。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。不过，我有时候做事也会失败，但一般来说总有进步。