Can The Government Really Label You Disabled?
Posted on Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 6:18 amIt seemed like only yesterday that I was living in Washington, D.C., working in corporate America, waking up at 6 am, rushing with my coffee while I brushed my teeth and put on my pinstripe suit and yellow power tie, and drove to work, arriving before rush hour. Only to be stressed out the rest of the day and night.
After a major heart attack, a burst appendicitis, a dysfunctional vagus nerve (requiring an implant) and a myriad of other health problems, I was put on the corporate sidelines, and, doctors said I would not be working again. I was only forty years old.
To be technical, I was now considered disabled. I did not buy the term. I bought a cheap computer and learned all I could about the Internet. I learned how to be a cartoonist and writer. I learned how to outsource and license the manufacturing of my image products. I became an entrepreneur within a few years, yet the government still considered me disabled.
So I built the most popular offbeat cartoon site on the web and twelve licensed image specialty stores. Told social security. “Sorry you are disabled”.
At age 47. I went back to college and even received a scholarship, completed 3 years but had to drop due to health reasons. It was not an easy college, a small (known to be difficult) private school. I made good grades. Still, I was disabled. I was beginning to realize the scars a label like “disabled” can make. They are deep and they fester. I do not feel disabled. I am a hard and honest worker. I know many others who were also put on the corporate sidelines. That could be why there are now approximately 30 million home office workers in the U.S. and, ironically provide more jobs while major corporations are downsizing.
Being disabled is not so bad. I work from home and I still have a social life, just not at my nine to five office. That’s okay. I save a lot on gas, and have my own Starbuck’s blend at home; so don’t have to drive there and pay inflated prices. I am a thousand times more productive being “disabled” than when I was a mover and shaker in corporate America. I bet others have experienced a similar feeling.
Which brings me to the whole issue of labeling. What is so productive about labeling? I have been ten times more productive as a “disabled person” than when I was “fully functional” (pushing and signing papers mostly), in corporate America. It is truly something to think about.
