full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Aimee Mullins: The opportunity of adversity

Unscramble the Blue Letters


The human atliiby to adapt, it's an interesting thing, because people have continually wanted to talk to me about overcoming adversity, and I'm going to make an admission: This phrase never sat right with me, and I always felt uneasy trying to answer people's qustoeins about it, and I think I'm starting to figure out why. Implicit in this phrase of "overcoming adversity" is the idea that success, or happiness, is about emerging on the other side of a challenging experience unscathed or unmarked by the experience, as if my successes in life have come about from an ability to sedsietp or circumnavigate the puemersd pitfalls of a life with prosthetics, or what other people perceive as my dibiisltay. But, in fact, we are changed. We are marked, of course, by a cenlahlge, whether psachlyliy, emotionally or both. And I'm going to suggest that this is a good thing. Adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. It's part of our life. And I tend to think of it like my sdahow. Sometimes I see a lot of it, sometimes there's very little, but it's always with me. And, certainly, I'm not trying to dinimsih the impact, the weight, of a person's struggle.

Open Cloze


The human _______ to adapt, it's an interesting thing, because people have continually wanted to talk to me about overcoming adversity, and I'm going to make an admission: This phrase never sat right with me, and I always felt uneasy trying to answer people's _________ about it, and I think I'm starting to figure out why. Implicit in this phrase of "overcoming adversity" is the idea that success, or happiness, is about emerging on the other side of a challenging experience unscathed or unmarked by the experience, as if my successes in life have come about from an ability to ________ or circumnavigate the ________ pitfalls of a life with prosthetics, or what other people perceive as my __________. But, in fact, we are changed. We are marked, of course, by a _________, whether __________, emotionally or both. And I'm going to suggest that this is a good thing. Adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. It's part of our life. And I tend to think of it like my ______. Sometimes I see a lot of it, sometimes there's very little, but it's always with me. And, certainly, I'm not trying to ________ the impact, the weight, of a person's struggle.

Solution


  1. questions
  2. sidestep
  3. presumed
  4. disability
  5. diminish
  6. physically
  7. challenge
  8. ability
  9. shadow

Original Text


The human ability to adapt, it's an interesting thing, because people have continually wanted to talk to me about overcoming adversity, and I'm going to make an admission: This phrase never sat right with me, and I always felt uneasy trying to answer people's questions about it, and I think I'm starting to figure out why. Implicit in this phrase of "overcoming adversity" is the idea that success, or happiness, is about emerging on the other side of a challenging experience unscathed or unmarked by the experience, as if my successes in life have come about from an ability to sidestep or circumnavigate the presumed pitfalls of a life with prosthetics, or what other people perceive as my disability. But, in fact, we are changed. We are marked, of course, by a challenge, whether physically, emotionally or both. And I'm going to suggest that this is a good thing. Adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. It's part of our life. And I tend to think of it like my shadow. Sometimes I see a lot of it, sometimes there's very little, but it's always with me. And, certainly, I'm not trying to diminish the impact, the weight, of a person's struggle.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
human ability 3
human spirit 3
open doors 2
opened doors 2
remember meeting 2
medical school 2
case study 2


Important Words


  1. ability
  2. adapt
  3. adversity
  4. answer
  5. challenge
  6. challenging
  7. changed
  8. circumnavigate
  9. continually
  10. diminish
  11. disability
  12. emerging
  13. emotionally
  14. experience
  15. fact
  16. felt
  17. figure
  18. good
  19. happiness
  20. human
  21. idea
  22. impact
  23. implicit
  24. interesting
  25. life
  26. living
  27. lot
  28. marked
  29. obstacle
  30. order
  31. overcoming
  32. part
  33. people
  34. perceive
  35. phrase
  36. physically
  37. pitfalls
  38. presumed
  39. prosthetics
  40. questions
  41. resume
  42. sat
  43. shadow
  44. side
  45. sidestep
  46. starting
  47. struggle
  48. success
  49. successes
  50. suggest
  51. talk
  52. tend
  53. uneasy
  54. unmarked
  55. unscathed
  56. wanted
  57. weight