Happiness Isn’t Just Playing the Game

By Joyce Scanlan, President

By the time I was three years old, I had learned a major lesson about society’s attitudes toward blindness. We already had four children in our family, two older than I and one younger. The word “blind” was never uttered; however, I was often asked “Can you see this?” or “Can you see that?” Why weren’t my siblings asked that question? That was curious, but even more curious was the reaction of family members when I answered the question. If I could see an object or a person, everyone was clearly happy. If I couldn’t see the thing pointed out, the response was a sad-sounding “Oh.” People seemed unhappy.

Why did my family and friends seem upset when I couldn’t see something? What’s wrong with not being able to see? These questions were transferred off to my subconscious, but my behavior soon altered to take care of the sad reactions of others. For the next two decades of my life, I ceased saying I couldn’t see and always said what made everyone happy. I learned to play the game.

I’ve always had great admiration for anyone who could recall a joke or recite a lengthy, profound or meaningful quotation, because, personally I can’t remember any kind of humorous joke or the exact words of a pithy saying unless I write it down immediately. A few months ago while rushing about the house with the radio on in the background, I heard a guy give a definition of happiness, which I thought made a lot of sense. He was quoting some unnamed person who said that happiness is the feeling that your life is going well. That struck me as so simple and yet so nifty that I rushed to write it down on a little card. We all want to be happy; yet we wonder what happiness really is. Of course, it probably depends on your individual situation as to the true meaning of happiness in your life. Yet we all work hard to define happiness and have happiness in our lives.

All of us have had ups and downs in our lives, the dark times and the bright spots. I’ve certainly had some gloom-and-doom times in life, as I’m sure everyone has, but all of us in the Federation today can feel that we are in a period of success and great accomplishment. Our organization is thriving with the increasing operation of the NFB Jernigan Research and Training Institute at our national headquarters. Almost daily we hear of a new program beginning in Baltimore. We have a mentoring program; the hand-held reading device is being demonstrated at state conventions and is being field tested throughout the country; we had a seminar for state presidents in Baltimore; we have an affiliate action program operating throughout the year—not just during national conventions; state affiliates have benefited from the Imagination Fund, and some, including Minnesota, have received grants from the Fund for special projects, and on and on. New people are being added to the staff at the Center; we hear that so-and-so—and any number of people—have moved to Baltimore to work at the Jernigan Institute. A constant rush of activities and new programs come on the scene, and we’re all happy and feeling good. Our lives are going well. Is this happiness? Well perhaps it is happiness for those of us in the Federation. As members of the National Federation of the Blind, we have spent a good deal of time and effort formulating the concepts that make up our philosophy of blindness. Our organization has benefited from the deep thinking and the extraordinary intelligence of many leaders, especially our three leading national presidents Dr. tenBroek, Dr. Jernigan and Dr. Maurer. Many scholarly individuals have contributed immeasurably to the body of written literature which contains the basic beliefs which all of us work to incorporate into our daily lives and hold as the tenets which make us Federationists and distinguish us from others who express philosophical principles concerning the subject of blindness. We know that the loss of physical eyesight is not the major problem we face, but, rather, the stereotypes and negative attitudes which people have traditionally held toward blindness.

Yes, this is our philosophy. We strive to put it to use in our daily activities, and we attempt to impart it to others, blind and sighted alike. Yet, if we will be honest, we will be forced to admit that we are all products of today’s society and are affected by the stereotypes and misconceptions about blindness which permeate our society, we face constant questions and doubts which threaten our positive progress at every turn. Or, at least while they may arise less and less frequently, the doubts and questions are occasionally with us.

Today, I can say to you with firm conviction that blind people are competent and can achieve the same level of success in life as sighted people if given proper and adequate training in the use of alternative techniques and the chance to put said training into practice. Now I can say that and actually believe it; however, there was a time in my life when I not only would not have said this but would have played a different game and would have steadfastly argued to the contrary. I tell you this in truthfulness, and not with pride.

Although I have been blind all my life, before 1970 when I came to know the National Federation of the Blind, I would never have admitted it without cringing with shame. Because I had some “residual” sight during my early years, the message continually conveyed to me was, “be thankful you can still see some; you’re so much better off than if you were totally blind.” As some of you will know, it doesn’t work well when you pretend to be sighted and are not. For example, I made some mistakes. One day I was standing in a store with a guy named Jim; we were waiting to meet a third person. I kept up a running conversation about something, and Jim listened.  He didn’t say anything for so long that I finally wondered to myself why he wasn’t responding when I spoke. Finally I said, “Well, Jim,” reached out my hand and touched a mirror. Jim had walked away.

There was also the incident with the purple dress. At Dayton’s Department Store I had been smitten by a certain dress; it came in green, brown, or purple. Because I was in a rush that day, I gave the matter some careful thought and decided later to order a purple dress over the telephone.  When the dress was delivered, I was disappointed to see that the clerk had mistakenly sent me the dress in brown instead of purple. I called the store and had a heated discussion with the clerk about the mistake she had made. I insisted that the dress I had received was brown. “I never wear brown,” I told her. She replied, “Well, I don’t know what happened between the store and your house, but when that dress left here (the store), it was purple.” Even at that, to me the dress was still brown. When I took it to the seamstress to be shortened and asked her the color of the dress, she said, “Oh, it’s a deep purple.” So there it was once again. I was still struggling with blindness, denying it and fighting to be sighted.

Much later when I had been a Federationist for several years, there was the incident involving Judy Sanders’s red hair. I sent our secretary to the airport to meet Judy when she moved to Minnesota. The secretary asked, “How will I know her?” I said, “She’ll have a white cane like mine, and—she has red hair.” Well, the secretary found Judy, and when they returned, Judy informed me “Joyce, I don’t have red hair.” I was absolutely certain I had seen red hair on her head. Just another incident when I refused to admit I was blind. There are many such stories, but I have long since figured out that I’m blind and that’s OK. I think that’s why I can understand and have some feeling for those who are struggling. I’ve been there. I could easily match those who are struggling in stubbornness and refusal to accept where I was. That gives me good hope for others and the chance that they’ll come around to a more upbeat frame of mind and will accept themselves for who and what they are. Our great American humorist, Mark Twain, said, “Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.” I sincerely hope that the strugglers aren’t in that position, for I sincerely believe that when they begin coming to Federation activities, they are actually in search of a better way of life. They may not even be able to articulate exactly why they are coming. I only hope that they’ll realize that the Federation is for them, that they will accept themselves for the intelligent, potentially-capable people they are and will learn, as we have, what happiness really is.

It’s true that we all live with our mistakes, at least until we find a better way. Oscar Wilde said, “Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes.” I come from the era in which almost everyone attended a residential school for the blind. For me, that school provided an opportunity to observe how others who were blind were treated. Remember, I, at the time, had some usable sight. At that school, tasks were consistently divided into two groups, those which required sight and those which did not. For instance, on Girl Scout camping trips, the sighted kids did the cooking over the campfire, while the blind ones had the job of washing the dishes. The sighted kids always served the food and cleaned up the table afterwards. The blind kids were always led by a sighted person. There were several blind teachers on our staff. It was apparent to all students that blind teachers were regarded as less competent, and more responsible tasks were assigned to sighted teachers. Our superintendent was also blind. His wife served as his secretary. All students recognized that the sighted secretary had a stronger voice in the operation of the school than the blind superintendent did. I never observed a blind teacher walking outside the school building alone. They were always with a sighted guide. Spending twelve years in this environment created attitudes which were difficult to overcome. So, you see why I can understand somewhat where those who struggle with Federation philosophy are coming from. Their environment has been different, but they have come out having learned some of the same negative attitudes I learned.

After spending elementary and high school in the cloistered setting of the residential school, I found college to be a real challenge. The competition with many other students who were not blind, new social situations to deal with, having to resolve issues with instructors and other students on my own were all serious challenges for me. Most of the time, I tried to bluff my way through by pretending to be sighted. I drew the line on this though when it came to the requirement that I take swimming classes. This was probably my most shameful moment in college. I had never been interested in anything athletic, so when the sophomore year came along with swimming required for an entire semester, I went to the dean and petitioned out of it on the basis of my “subnormal vision,” as the doctor put it. The saddest part of that was that it worked; I was excused from swimming, and I still have not learned to swim. I wonder if the college would handle that differently today. I know for sure I would.

It took many years, but I was eventually able to use that experience to benefit others—to turn a lemon into lemonade, so to speak. When I was the director at our training center, Blindness: Learning in New Dimensions (BLIND), Inc. and conducting seminars with students, this swimming—or non-swimming—experience served as an example for students of what not to do. It served as an example to them that I wasn’t perfect, and they could learn from my mistake. Students often feel guilty and don’t want to reveal their shortcomings; they think we expect them to be perfect. I showed them I, too, was human and had to relearn some things to have a better life.

My days of “bluffing” eyesight I didn’t have had come to an abrupt end one day when, although I had recognized there was some drastic problem with my eyesight, I was rushing to the door of the classroom with the attendance slip and crashed into another teacher who was coming in to talk with me. She was wearing a bright red dress, and I hadn’t seen her. That was the moment I at least intellectually threw in the towel on pretending to be sighted. I knew for a fact that I was blind. What had just happened is not acceptable or appropriate or professional or anything else. One does not bump into a colleague in a wide open space with nothing else around. How would you explain it? “Oh, excuse me; I just realized I’m blind.” I could have said, “Excuse me, I didn’t see you.” Her response could have been, “But, you were looking directly at me.” Then I might have said, “But I wasn’t paying attention.” I could have said these things, but I didn’t have my wits about me. Looking back on that incident, I know that that was my moment of reckoning, my turning point. I knew deep down, at least intellectually, that I had to do something different. Emotionally, I had many miles to go. I left teaching, because I had attributed every bit of success I had enjoyed to the fact that I could still see a little. My only reference was the blind people I had known while in school.

For the next four or five years I floundered around struggling to regain my self-confidence and my ability to again be self-supporting. This was my very first contact with actual rehab training. To the state-agency rehab counselors, I must have presented quite a problem, because I asked so many questions that they couldn’t answer: Why are there no blind people teaching? What really is your job? Why are so many blind people working in sheltered workshops? As you might expect, the fine counselors took no responsibility for anything; things were so bad because blind people just weren’t willing or able to do very much. How very sad.

For the first time, I began to give serious thought to blindness and what it meant. And when I experienced that first National Federation of the Blind convention in Minneapolis in 1970, I was thrilled with what I found. Change is possible; great benefits can come to blind people as we educate the broader public and ourselves about positive approaches to blindness. Our expectations for blind people are high and becoming ever higher. It is “realistic” to expect meaningful lives for all of us. Many people over the years have clung steadfastly to a gloomy outlook on blindness and are not likely to change their views or their outlook. They refuse to permit themselves to learn anything new and more accurate about blindness. They dwarf education and hide in the past, selling themselves and other blind people short.  They are struggling, and we should help them find a better way of life. I am also one who learned late, but thank goodness not too late, a better way of dealing with blindness. If I can learn to deal with changes, after the difficult struggle I had long ago, anyone can. Most of us have had missed or lost opportunities. I could have and should have been aware of the Federation long before 1970. The Federation was active in the ‘50s and ‘60s working to benefit me. I turned my back and lived the life of a hermit. The Federation was organizing students and fighting court cases on behalf of teachers, making it possible for blind people to be employed as teachers. I was snooty and uppity and wouldn’t admit I was blind. I insisted on fighting my battles alone. The Federation also was standing up against the rehabilitation system to make it more effective for blind people. But I again wanted to wage a personal war.

It was the National Federation of the Blind and the people I have met through the organization that have changed my life forever. The best of all I know and believe about blindness, I learned from the Federation. It is my sincere desire that all blind people will come to accept our Federation philosophy and will join with us as we change what it means to be blind. I have great faith that the future belongs to the Federation. Our beliefs are taking hold among thousands of blind people, and eventually we will capture the hearts and souls of the hard-core of the world. Working as a training-center director, I learned long ago that those who struggle the most make the best progress. That certainly was my experience. Everyone deserves to experience real happiness. Federationists can’t be lazy; we can’t complain; we can’t give up. The Federation is in line for major progress in the years to come. Everyone deserves to feel that their life is going well; everyone deserves happiness. Let’s stay on track and make our dreams come true!!!