Negative to Positive

Don’t you ever wish you could just turn off your ears when it gets too noisy around you?  Seems like something that would really come in handy when you’re trying to study or read a book.  Well, let me tell you, it’s pretty amazing to be able to do that.

Losing a chunk of my hearing is something that most people feel I should be upset about.  Was I at first?  Yeah.  I mean, I’m only 15 and in order to hear what’s going on around me I need hearing aids.  That is definitely not normal, especially considering none of my siblings have this issue.  So yes, I was pretty upset when my hearing started to go and ended up getting bad enough to the point where I needed to get hearing aids.

I hate being upset though.  I’m typically a laid back, happy guy so being angry and upset aren’t emotions I enjoy.  Then again, who does?  My point is, after a while I started to focus on the positives of this problem instead of the negative.  The first one being that if I get sick of the noise around me, I turn off the hearing aids and I can easily enter my own world without those noisy distractions.

The best thing that has come out of this though, is that I am able to speak a whole new language – American Sign Language.  Since not many people around me know it, I find enjoyment in it when they have no clue what I’m saying, but… I also love teaching my classmates some signing basics.  What really amazed me was that as I was learning ASL, my siblings all jumped on board to learn it as well.  Instead of saying, “Well, I already know a second language,” they joined me in my lessons and took time on their own to learn to sign.

So yeah, hearing loss really sucks.  On the other hand, my siblings and I were able to learn a new language and are constantly learning more about Deaf Culture; one of my sisters was even prompted to get her Bachelor’s in Deaf Studies so she can work with deaf students.

Life is definitely more enjoyable when you learn to take the positives from the negatives.