Ethan Pang

Accentuate the positives

Born without arms and legs, Nick Vujicic has turned his disability into a beacon of hope for others

Katie Lau
Nov 24, 2008

South China Morning Post in Hong Kong

 

Nick Vujicic’s visit to Hong Kong seems well-timed. As the city reels from the harsh realities of recession, the 25-year-old Australian motivational speaker today starts a six-day stopover here, brimming with positive thought.

 

Born in Melbourne without arms and legs, Vujicic has always struggled with his rare condition, tetra-amelia syndrome, but has still achieved a double degree in accounting and financial planning, a career in property and stock market investing as well as a nomination in 2005 for Young Australian of the Year.

 

And when the story of his success appeared on 20/20 and Australia’s 60 Minutes, Vujicic became a popular international speaker and moved to California in January last year to better meet demand for his talks. Slated to appear on Larry King Live and The Oprah Winfrey Show next year, he is on an Asian tour and has just arrived from addressing the needy in Mumbai. Now he hopes to remind Hong Kong people how a can-do spirit is key to surviving hard times.

 

“The financial situation and uncertainty breeds the feeling of fear, and fear is the biggest disability in the world,” he says. “We have survived another depression and recession, so we should be confident that no matter what comes, we can get through if we come together.”

 

Vujicic meets earthquake victims in Mianyang, Sichuan, on November 28-29 and returns to Hong Kong for his 26th birthday on December 4. He says he has yet to work out the content of his talks on the mainland.

“I don’t want them to think I say I understand their pain because I don’t know what they’ve gone through yet,” he says.

 

“I just want them to know they are not alone and that there’s hope until you give up. If they keep on trying, they can be a miracle of hope and encouragement to someone else who also went through the same thing.”

Vujicic’s own life story is of a triumph of hope against adversity to create, as he says, “a life without limbs into a life without limits”.

He says his pastor father and nurse mother sank into an abyss of doubt, grief and anger after a smooth, medication-free pregnancy and the shock of his, their first-born’s, birth. “My parents feared what kind of life their boy was going to have because they didn’t know anybody who had the same condition,” he says.

Bullied and ridiculed all through his childhood, Vujicic says he often felt depressed.

“I prayed for many years that I’d wake up one day with arms and legs to the point where I did feel very discouraged,” he says.

The taunting persisted into his adolescence, but a kind stranger’s response to one teasing by 12 children gave six-year-old Nick self-esteem for the first time, he says. When the stranger approached him, he was “prepared for the worst”, Vujicic says.

“But she whispered, `I love you just the way you are, and you look good’. All of a sudden, because of that person who spoke positively to me, I didn’t care what the other 12 people thought about me.”

Vujicic was able to live a normal life, however. He was one of the first disabled students to be integrated into a mainstream school after his mother in 1990 fought for the change of a law governing the education of disabled children. And he studied hard.

“I didn’t want my parents to live with guilt for the rest of their lives,” he says.

And with the encouragement of his parents and friends, Vujicic soon found the best way to deal with his physical disability was to talk to people.

“It’s difficult to find friends as they assume I have mental disability too and don’t know how to approach me,” he says. “But my parents encouraged me to speak to more people, especially adults and teachers. I think I am more mature and intellectually curious for it.”

As Vujicic found his speaking voice, his audiences grew. When he was 17 he spoke to his first group, of students, then addressed clusters of youth, handicapped people, entrepreneurs and church congregations. He says he found his vocation to hit the road and preach when he was 19, while he addressed more than 300 students.

“A girl started crying and everyone stared at her,” he says. “But she came up and gave me a hug, and said I was beautiful.”

That moment “changed my life”, he says. “I knew that I could impact someone else’s life like that. It’s priceless. Now I realise when other people see me, I can use it as an opportunity to say hello and open their horizons [to the fact] that people with special needs can feel normal too.”

Vujicic has always struggled for his independence from his disability. “I couldn’t get myself a glass of water and I needed my parents to take me to then toilet when I was 11,” he says. “It’s very embarrassing.”

He experimented with electronic arms but gave them up because they were too heavy to operate and affected his mobility, he says.

However, Vujicic was convinced he could do a lot with his two-toed left “foot”.

“I am grateful that I’ve been given a brain and my little chicken drumstick,” Vujicic says. “My mum and dad figured out how to do a number of things for me to live independently. Everything is just trial and error.”

Vujicic can now use his toes to type more than 40 words a minute, operate his special wheelchair, play golf, swim and fish. And YouTube videos showing him hopping and performing tricks have garnered over a million views.

However, Vujicic is less keen to take care of himself, and has hired two caregivers. “I want to reserve my energy to preach,” he says.

He admits life challenges remain and that he can’t drive a car, but he’s not giving up on romance.

“I used to see couples on the beach and thought there’s a massive list of things I’d never get to do,” he says. “But I see now, though I may not have hands to hold my wife’s hands, I don’t need hands to hold her heart.”

Vujicic says he’s dated a few girls and although he says many have professed their love for him, he is in no hurry to get hitched.

“There’s a reason for every season,” he says. “There’s a time to be married and a time to stay single. We can do what we can with what we have, one step at a time.”

Vujicic says the greatest tragedy “is not a life without limbs, but a life without hope”.

“When I tell people they should never give up, they believe me because they can see my pain is very real.

“Someone may think my suffering is greater than his, but it’s not always true. It’s just that my disability is more visible than others’. To me, having a broken family is worse than having no limbs. Our hope is not found in comparing suffering or pain, but in forgiveness and when friends join hands together.”

He says he wouldn’t change his situation. “I see it as a gift. It gives me the greatest joy because the world is looking for hope and I am giving that.”

Vujicic now pokes fun at his disability in passionate lectures that often put a humorous spin on potentially mortifying situations. He says he tells his audiences: “Sometimes when I am in the pool, others can see only my head, and some of them freak out. A boy asked me what happened, and I said, `Cigarettes!’”

His humour is proof of his unrelenting optimism.

“If I start feeling sorry for myself, others will do the same. However, if I can joke about myself, it’s a good relief and it’s good to laugh once in a while,” he says.