Left-handed people are challenged everyday by the way the world is designed. Today, most gadgets are designed for the majority of the population, right-handed people. Unluckily, devices for left-handed people are limited, difficult to find and unaffordable to some people. Some minor challenges left-handers face include using right handed scissors, writing utensils, guns, guitars, motorcycles, notebooks, knifes, doors, etc. These right-handed items go unnoticed because society has grown to believe that “that’s just how things are”.[2] However, not all these challenges are minor. For example, left-handed people in the U.S. drive American vehicles which have the steering wheel on the left side of the car and the gears on the right side. As a result, traffic accidents occur because we, left-handers, are required to use our right hand to switch gears. Tell me; do you still find it surprising that “two thousand five hundred left-handed people die each year directly as a result of using products designed for right-handed people”?[3]
These challenges may seem irrelevant to most right-handed individuals, but I think it’s become a hassle more than ever. This is because the population in the world is increasing significantly which means more lefties. Nowadays, “…as much as ten to fifteen percent of the population is left-handed”.[4] If statistics say that the left-handed population is growing, shouldn’t left-handed objects be more affordable and common? I believe that part of the reason for this lack of left-handed gadgets is because nobody has spoken up.
Ever since I began school, I’ve stood out from my peers because I’m left-handed. In Pre-K, I had a difficult time learning how to write and it took extra effort for me to cut straight with right-handed scissors. As a little girl, I didn’t know that all these items were designed specifically to facilitate tasks for right-handed people, but I knew I was different. Nonetheless, I’ve always preferred to think of myself as gifted because I’ve had to adapt. By living in a right-handed world I have been forced to exercise both of my hands more than others. This leads me to believe that if I could write neater with my right-hand, I’d be convinced that I’m ambidextrous. Luckily, being ambidextrous or ALMOST ambidextrous is applauded by society today
.Though, this has not always been the case. [5]
Left-handers were discriminated long ago. In the medieval times, lefties were seen as “evil” because “the scriptures say [that being left-handed] is of the devil”.[6] They believed that “the word ‘left’… [came] from the Anglo-Saxon ‘lyft’, meaning ‘weak’ or ‘broken’’.[7] A more recent example would be that decades ago “…teachers in America used to slap the wrists of students who attempted to write with their left hands”.[8] On the other hand, there are also positive myths about lefties.
One of them is that “…being left-handed means having a dominant right side of the brain… [and] have slight advantages in baseball”.[9] Having a dominant right side of the brain gives lefties an advantage because the right side of the brain works more with emotions, wholes and relationships among the parts, simultaneous and holistic thinking, and it also deals with synthesis.[10] Whatever the myths are or were, the world still hasn’t been fixed for lefties. Surprisingly, even in such a diverse university like UT, there are insufficient accommodations for left-handed people.
When I began school here at UT, I expected to see many accommodations for lefties, but I was [11] disappointed. On the first day of school, when I was seated in the Will C. Hog building I noticed that there are three hundred and sixty-five seats, but only fourteen of those desks are have the arm tablet reversed. If ten to fifteen percent of the U.S. population isn’t right-handed then the rationality is incorrect in this hall.[12] This was when I decided that something needs to be done. Lefties in this university need a leader to make the changes and that is me. According to Covey, “the leader is the one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation, and yells, “Wrong jungle!”[13]Undeniably, the advantages of being a UT student are the limitless resources available to me which I could only benefit from. What will also contribute into helping me become a leader are the courses that my major requires. In order to attain a psychology degree, I am required to take various social science classes such as sociology and psychology. These classes will allow me to understand human behavior. Understanding human behavior will help me be an ethical leader, how to approach the issue, and how to approach human beings.
My UGS class, Leadership, Ethics and Animals, is focused on leadership and it will help me become an ethical leader and allow me to be “reborn” again discover who I am. Knowing who I am will help me decide what I need to do in life and my strengths and weaknesses. In this class I’ve learned that “…if we don’t develop self-awareness…we empower other people and circumstances outside our Circle of Influence to shape much of our lives by default”.[14] It has also been very informative about the resources available like writing centers that I most likely consult when I begin working on my goal. Furthermore, this class will make me a better writer and reader by implementing and challenging my reading and writing proficiency everyday of the semester.
Mr. Bump has stressed throughout the semester that writing is an aptitude that can facilitate life for people and make a great impact in society. The writing class I take will confidently allow me to improve my writing skills. Skillful writing will help me persuade people and make a change. Good writing and good reading are correlated and that class will also help me become a better reader. Literacy will unquestionably be helpful when I begin working on my leadership vision because if I can read and write well, I can communicate with people. Better developed writing skills will allow me to communicate with people nonverbally and make a greater impact. Other classes that will help me enhance my ability to communicate with others are the foreign language classes that I am required to take. Learning another language will make trilingual and I will be a better-rounded individual.
However, not all the classes that I am required to take will make me a better-rounded person or help me reach my goal. I must also take a U.S. history class, two math classes, three biology or physics classes, and a visual and performance arts class. Even though these classes are irrelevant to my leadership vision, I ought to take them if I want to become a psychologist. I will not allow obstacles to stand in my way of becoming a leader in my community. I will take these ineffective classes as soon as I can and constantly remind myself that “…education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them”.[15] 
[16]
My college experience will definitely play a big role in my aspiration to make a change at UT. I will join the Student Government, and express the needs of left-handed students. I also want to hold a leadership role such as president or vice-president before the end of my junior year in the Student Government. Even though I have everything planned out, things don’t go our way all the time. That is why I believe in always having a backup plan because we never know what might happen. My plan B is to begin my own organization for lefties in the university. I highly doubt that it will be difficult to find at least two other lefties who share the same ideas as me and pay the ten dollar fee to start club. Starting a new club will allow me to unite all the left-handed people who would like to make a greater impact. I believe that by actually seeing all the lefties unite, the university will become aware of the amount of lefties in this university.
After achieving my goal of beginning a club or of becoming a leader in the Student Government, the next goal would be to work with the members and inform people about our everyday struggles. I will also inform people about “International Left-handers Day” which not a lot of people know about.[18] After informing people, the next step to that would be to bring this up to the university and hope that changes are made on campus. By January 2010, I should be able to become the voice for lefties or establish and promote my organization.
By next March, I will be educating people about how left-handed people are challenged and affected everyday. After doing this successfully, I will hopefully grab hold of the attention of whoever can add more lefty desks and a change will be made. The more supporters I have, the easier it will be to be heard. With the help of others, I am hoping to see changes on campus by next fall.
By next March, I will be educating people about how left-handed people are challenged and affected everyday. After doing this successfully, I will hopefully grab hold of the attention of whoever can add more lefty desks and a change will be made. The more supporters I have, the easier it will be to be heard. With the help of others, I am hoping to see changes on campus by next fall.
Making changes on campus will be a stretch goal that will lead me to making bigger changes in the future. Possibly, after achieving this, I will make change the world for left-handed people. It would be wonderful to one day create or influence a national organization that will support left-handed people and help them survive in this right-handed designed world. For the moment, I’m willing to focus on making a local change and doing my best to accomplish my goal the best that I can. I will constantly remind myself that “Men [and women], whose minds are possessed with some one object [or leadership vision], take exaggerated views of its importance, are feverish in the pursuit of it, make it the measure of things which are utterly foreign to it, and are startled and despond if it happens to fail them.”[19]
Word Count without Quotes: 1,436
Word Count with Quotes: 1,654
[1] http://www.onehandedkeyboard.com/imagesfolder/leftkeyb.gif This is a picture of a left-handed keyboard.
[2] Richard Cussons, "Coping With Being Left Handed." Ezine Articles. April 20, 2006, http://ezinearticles.com/?Coping-With-Being-Left-Handed&id=182113.
[3] Kevin McCarthy, “How many left handed people die each year from using right handed products, ChaCha your mobile BFF, February 19, 2008. http://www.chacha.com/question/how-many-left-handed-people-die-each-year-from-using-right-handed-products.
[4] Richard Cussons
[5] http://radioinsidescoop.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/left-handed.jpg
[6] http://radioinsidescoop.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/left-handed.jpg
[7] Richard Cussons
[8] Richard Cussons
[9] Richard Cussons
[10] Stephen R. Covey. “Principle-Centered Leadership, 1990.” Leadership, Ethics, and Animals: A Signature Seminar, Ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2009), 225.
[11] http://www.css.washington.edu/pdf/classrooms/101389.png
[12] Richard Cussons
[13] Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change (New York: Free press, NY, 2004), 100-101.
[14] Stephen R. Covey
[15] Paul Newman. “The Idea of a University, 1852.” Leadership, Ethics, and Animals: A Signature Seminar, Ed. Jerome Bump (Austin: Jenn’s Copy & Binding, 2009), 170.
[16] http://centex09.texasultimate.org/_/rsrc/1237387108165/sponsors-1/new%20SG%20logo.jpg
[17] http://www.leftorium.com/images/leftorium_400.jpg
[18] Richard Cussons
[19] Paul Newman
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