by Nichole Kraft

“Sight is overrated.”

This declaration is how Hannah Lindner entered into the 2008-2009 school year at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska. But she wasn’t trying to be witty or sarcastic. She was just describing what she has learned in life: If we rise above challenges that seem to be important, we can focus on what’s actually important.

Born in 1987 as the first of three children, Hannah was diagnosed with Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis (LCA) when she was 6 months old. LCA is a rare genetic disorder in which children typically lose their sight within the first few years of life. According to Lindner, her parents were frightened at the diagnosis. As a result, she says, “they became extremely protective. They were afraid something was going to happen to me.”

Sheltered and Landlocked

Lindner got her first white cane when she was in preschool. She learned cane technique quickly, and she flourished academically. However, as she looks back, she realizes that she was living a very sheltered life.

“I thought it was perfectly normal for high school students to be homebodies,” she says. “I was pretty much in the dark, literally. I didn’t know there was another life. The way a day went was: get up, go to school, come home, maybe go outside and swing. I pretty much just did my homework and slept. I didn’t know there were more things I could do.”

About halfway through her teenage years, Lindner began to sense that she was isolated and confined. Her parents preferred her to stay at home because, Lindner says, “They were in the here and now. They were just trying to protect me.” Thus, Lindner began to see her blindness as a hindrance, and this gradually became her focus.

Lindner remembers a couple of times in particular when she began to feel frustrated with her situation. “I remember one day I had to stay home from school,” she says.” I wasn’t feeling the best, so my dad made me stay home. I really wished I could have just jumped in the car and driven to school.”
Another time, Lindner stayed home from the volunteer activities she had been participating in because her parents didn’t have the time to drive her. She says she began feeling “pretty landlocked.” As a result, she became more and more discouraged.

Worried About College

As her high school years progressed, Lindner grew concerned about her future. “I was worried about how I would handle college, how I would work,” she admits. “I wasn’t sure what adaptations I would need. I had some doubt. ‘What if I can’t do the jobs that I want to do? What if I can’t be what I want to be?’”
Lindner’s outlook continued to deteriorate. The frustrations, the doubts, the unanswered questions—everything contributed to her resenting her blindness rather than relishing life.

But eventually, all that began to change. “It was somebody I met at age 17,” Lindner says.

Barbara Loos, a mentor working for the Nebraska Commission for the Blind, became one of Lindner’s closest friends. Loos, who has a condition similar to Lindner’s, became a motivational force in Lindner’s life. “She’s very mobile and very positive,” Lindner says. “That’s what flipped me around. And I mean flipped me around!”

Loos invited Lindner to her home, took her to restaurants, answered her questions about life as a professional. She taught Lindner not only hands-on skills like mobility, cooking, and cleaning, but also how to use her own assertiveness to overcome a bleak attitude.

Leaving the Comfort Zone Behind

Part of being assertive and positive, Lindner says, is getting out of your comfort zone. “It feels awkward to hear somebody walk by and to say, ‘Hey, I’m lost’ or, ‘Can I get directions?’ But she made me do it a few times. When we were looking for each other in a big crowd of blind people, we’d just shout out each other’s names. It was way out of the comfort zone. And she herself doesn’t like being extremely conspicuous, but sometimes you have to be.”

Lindner remembers one time in particular when Loos made her exercise self-reliance and a positive, adaptive outlook. Loos, her husband, and Lindner were walking to lunch, Lindner recalls, “and as sheltered as I was, I was used to somebody leading me around.” But Loos made Lindner listen to her and her husband’s voices, so that she could follow on her own. “That was a little different than what I was used to. I was a little worried I might get lost. I was like, ‘Okay, I hope I can trust myself here.’” She didn’t get lost and realized that she could indeed rely on herself and that a positive attitude could help her deal with strange situations.

Observing and interacting with other self-sufficient people offered Lindner the hope she needed. Her own outlook became happy and hopeful.

Now a fourth-year social work major at Union College in Lincoln, NE, Lindner credits Loos’ example as the catalyst that began dissipating the bitterness and frustration that blindness had caused. Finding someone to guide her out of that emotional blindness was essential. “The networking aspect is so important,” she insists. “It’s having examples. You can ask questions, you can go watch them work for a day. You start to see successful people.”

Life—especially as a college student—can be stressful and challenging at times, and Lindner admits that some days she still struggles with her attitude. Remaining the master over one’s frustration and irritation is an active job, and a necessary one.

Boosting the Good Feelings

For Lindner, working at focusing on the positive means carving out time for her to decompress after a stressful day. “Usually the first thing I’ll do is go somewhere by myself, put my headphones on and sing out loud. It doesn’t matter if somebody hears me—I don’t care. They can think I’m weird if they want—I’m getting rid of icky feelings, and helping to boost good ones,” she explains. “Another thing I’ll do is go for a walk. I had a really stressful day here a while back, and I couldn’t stand sitting in class anymore. I just went and walked the campus. I probably spent 45 minutes walking around. It’s just clearing the stress out of my head. It gives me time to think it through, gives me time to work at a slower pace.”

Lindner says she works on her cheery outlook because to harbor a negative one is self-defeating. “If you’re walking around with a negative attitude, that’s kind of what your life is going to turn into because that’s all you’re thinking about,” she says. “Whereas, if you have a positive attitude and try to reframe things, you’re just going to feel a lot better—feel a lot happier. Life is going to be more of those positive things because that’s what you’re focusing on.”

The crux of it all, says Lindner, is individual choice. “Life becomes what a blind person makes of it. It can be awful or wonderful, depending on what you choose to do with it.”

Lindner is not speaking out of turn. She knows what she’s talking about. A few years ago, she was choosing to surrender to negativity. Now, she says, she realizes that her blindness is not only a positive thing, but that she wouldn’t have it any other way. Some things are the way they are, she says, because we need motivation to live life to its fullest. “I was made the way I was made for a reason,” she insists. “The only person I’m going to allow to make my situation any different is Jesus.”

When a person chooses happiness over depression, and activity over stagnation, that person only needs to realize that some things—such as eyesight—are, to quote Lindner’s statement in the college’s student directory, “overrated.” Others, however, are essential. Distinguishing the overrated from the essential is the key. Lindner says: “One of my friends has a saying: ‘Attitude is everything.’ And it really is.”