Good OvercomesSample

We have no way of knowing where the future will take us, but as my mother reminded me, we just have to trust that there is something beautiful waiting for us if we can find the courage to move toward it. It’s like the quote often attributed to Martin Luther King Jr.: “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

I never dreamed I would find more meaning and freedom in life because of my struggles, but as I enter my third Paralympic Games, I’m now surer of myself, as both an athlete and a woman, than ever before. I have shed the restrictions placed on me—by others as well as myself—and built a life rooted in possibility, potential, and promise. When I refused to accept limits to what I could do, I threw open the door to a life that’s bigger and fuller than I could ever have imagined.

This, I believe, is what my mother meant when she told me, “Good overcomes.” It’s not about naïve optimism; it’s about believing in the power of resilience—the combination of courage, passion, patience, and perseverance—to create something meaningful out of difficult circumstances. Resilience is simply doing what you have to do for as long as it takes. You don’t have to do it with grace, and you don’t have to do it with cheerfulness—you just have to do it. It’s simultaneously that simple and that profoundly difficult. It’s also the only way to move beyond whatever limits life may have placed on you.

When we remove every boundary that hems us in—physical, emotional, or societal—we become limitless. When we reject preconceived notions about what something “should” look like, we move ourselves toward the possible. The real secret to overcoming setbacks is developing the wisdom to know which goals are worth pursuing and which weights—expectations, limitations, and disappointments—we must let go in order to rise to the top. Don’t be afraid to cut anchor. Fight your way back to the surface. And, most importantly, don’t lose hope that good, as it always does, will overcome.