Creative Service and the Mirage of Disability

By Joseph Sunde

Annette Gabbedy is a business owner and an expert designer and goldsmith. She was also born without fingers, a trait many would consider to be a “disability,” particularly in her line of work.

Yet, as she explains in the following video, having created and traded her wares for over 20 years, Gabbedy sees no reason for that to inhibit her creativity and contribution to society. Quite to the contrary:

As Gabbedy explains:

I tend to really look at people with fingers and think: Well, how can you manage with fingers, because they must get in the way? It’s just your own perceptive of how you look at yourself, and for me, I was born like it, so I’ve never known any different. I’m quite normal. I’m not disabled at all.

Gabbedy’s story is yet another example of the ways human creativity and determination so often surprise us, transcending and exceeding what turn out to be rather limited assumptions and expectations.

We all have “disabilities,” of course, each varying in extremity and difficulty, and capacity. But let us never forget that each person has something to contribute, and far too often, what we assume to be an impediment to creative service turns out to be quite the opposite.

Originally published at the Acton PowerBlog