EILEEN ADLER

Ian Mackay was paralyzed in 2008 in a bike accident, but he recognized that there is happiness in finding new ways to experience old loves. There’s a lesson here that Mackay always shares with fellow quads: “In the struggle to recover what is lost, we often forget to keep pursuing what we never had in the first place.” It took him a while to learn this, but he knows it’s been essential in finding himself again. “So many of us try to redefine who we are, but I think happiness lies in embracing the loves you always had and finding ways to do them in a different way,” he says. “I don’t think that your limitations should define what you love and what you pursue.” “There’s a quote: “Life begins at the end of your comfort zones. We need those reminders, that maybe our mind is the only thing that’s limiting us. Maybe it’s not just our bodies.” His current mode of transportation: a mouth-controlled lithium battery operated motorized wheelchair sporting his floor-length dreadlocks that are now braided in pigtails to keep from dragging. Google: “Ian MacKay paralyzed biker” to read the story in Sports Illustrated

 

Life Lesson: "Belief may be no more, in the end, than a source of energy,   
like a battery which one clips into an idea to make it run." - J. M. Coetzee.