DailyGood

For the last 27 years, DailyGood newsletters have offered a daily email that inspires you to respond to life with creativity and kindness. To join a community of 148,339 subscribers, subscribe here.

Oct 20, 2008

"In Chinese the word "crisis" contains two symbols, danger & opportunity... How do you choose to deal with "crisis"?" --Jim Maclaren

Choosing Life: The Story of Jim Maclaren

A 300-pound, 6-foot-5 All-American football player, Yale student and aspiring actor Jim MacLaren's life literally ended after he was hit by a 40,000-pound city bus in his early twenties. Pronounced dead at the accident scene, he awoke from a coma eight days later, his left leg missing below the knee. Fast-forward a few years. MacLaren, supported by a prosthetic leg, becomes the top amputee triathlete in the world, completing the grueling Ironman and setting a marathon record among amputees. In 1993, his athletic career comes to another cruelly abrupt halt when he is again struck, this time by a van during a triathlon. Doctors declare him a quadriplegic. But that didn't stop Jim either. "I am not my body," he says. "I am a man, and I am alive. As alive as anyone who is jamming a basketball, scoring a touchdown or hugging their child."