Bare with me, because I’m about to say something that most would consider blasphemous or even offensive: I think everyone should live with some sort of disability throughout their lifetime.

This sort of utterance would likely be met with a lot of backlash or rude comments telling me that I’m a messed up person, but I really do mean it in good will.

https://youtu.be/QTUMFBddbh0

What I really want to say is that I think everyone should be put in the shoes of the other, the neglected, or the minority. When experiencing a life filled with neglect, misunderstanding, and even name calling, a person begins to commiserate with that community.

Too often people phrase things in a certain way that makes it seem like the disabled community is inhuman, messed up, or “wrong” in certain ways. Really, though, these are just people who live different lives than you.

What’s that? Someone is different than you? Oh, that sounds normal.

That’s the problem. People focus too much on normality. On what is normal and what isn’t. It’s pretty pointless in my opinion, because humanity thrives off of diversity and differences. I mean, really, imagine eating nothing but potatoes for the rest of your life. Or drinking only soda. Or wearing the same clothes. Or listening to the same song over and over. Or watching just one film. Or reading only one book.

Do you get the point yet? I really wish the rest of society would.

In fact, one of the things that would completely flip everyone else’s perceptions upside down is that most people live with or experience a disability at some point in their lives. This fact alone would likely make people reconsider what a disability is. It’s just a shame that no one seems to know this.

That’s one thing I think things like disability insurance can do for the disabled community, though. If there were more awareness on how disability insurance can help you not only prepare for a loss of income down the road but also make you see that temporary disabilities are just as much a disability as something permanent. That being disabled isn’t a bad thing but rather a different thing. It’s just different from your own experience, which is pretty much how everything in life works.

Cultures are different. Languages are different. Technology is different. Genders are different. Races are different. Hair is different. Careers are different.

So, too, are disabilities. They’re just different. Not right, not wrong, not good, not bad. Just different.

My dad recently found out that he has a stress fracture in his foot that has put him out of work. For me to hear this, well, it’s kind of a different situation than I ever would have imagined with my dad and his career.

To put it in perspective, my dad’s a mailman. So, he walks for a living. Walks all over the small town I grew up in and logs anywhere from 10 to 15 miles a day.

If you multiply that by thousands and thousands of days he’s walked since he’s been doing it for over 30 years, well, developing a stress fracture within his foot makes a lot of sense, logically. I wasn’t surprised to hear this, though. What I was surprised to hear was that he’d be off work for around 6 weeks.

Growing up, all I knew about my parents was that they worked hard and then came home to work on other projects. They’re working folk through and through. But I can’t recall them ever taking a day off for any reason. Not for sickness. Not for injury. Not for weather. They’ve always worked every single day, to my knowledge.

So it came as quite a surprise that he’s off for over a month. (I mean I’m actually pretty happy for him, because they work him to death.)

What could come as more surprising to other people, though, is that he didn’t file for a work-related injury despite his entire career causing this stress fracture. While he easily could, he decided to just dip into his thousand-plus hours of sick leave instead to save the post office any trouble. What a man, right?

This all makes me think about my own job, though. While physical injury (barring my hands) wouldn’t put me out of writing, some sort of illness definitely could and I’m not someone who currently has disability insurance, just like my dad. The difference, though, is that he has enough sick leave to last him until he retires. Me? I’d probably be out of a job if something bad happened.

Disability insurance is one of those things though that people don’t realize they need. While work-related injuries are almost always covered by the company you work for, things that could befall you outside of work definitely aren’t. And that’s where people misstep. They think they’re invincible and won’t ever become hurt or sick, but that kind of stuff happens all the time to normal, everyday workers.

It’s having no preparation or plan in place at all that can come back to bite you. While insurance is one of those peace of mind kind of investments, it’s so worth it in order to ward off financial ruin when disaster does strike.

So, if you’ve been even remotely considering having this type of insurance (or even life insurance), go out and get it now.