Hidden Impairments

I have worked diligently on the video for the Peru trip and have finished. I have a ten-minute presentation on DVD set to music using three songs. We will be showing it in church Sunday. They have set aside time for a formal showing and for team members to tell about the trip. This was the deadline that I always need to propel me into completing this enormous task every time we return from one of these trips.

On this trip, I spent very little time filming myself. We traveled to so many villages and concentrated on providing medical care, so I devoted my energies to caring for patients. I delegated the task of recording the trip on video to Lee, the sole High School member on the team. His ship-mate roomie, Josh, a college student joining us on the trip from Arizona State, an exceptional photographer, hardly ever seen without at least three cameras sporting imposing lenses draped around his neck, complimented the video records Lee created that documented our venture.

When I sat down to digitize the video that Lee provided to me after we returned home I was pleased. He did an outstanding job and recorded high quality video. He got close to the subject, used interesting angles, used motion well, held the camera still, selected a wide variety of subject matter that was representative and useful. I captured close to 400 clips from just over two hours of tape and the video was one of the easiest to edit that I have ever done. Of coarse, I am getting better at this, and I did keep it simple, but if I do say so myself, I think it came out pretty good. We shall see how it does as it is shown.

However, I learned something about myself that I did not expect. I used this same camera on our last trip to film video. I came back after two weeks with nearly 24 hours of recordings and ended up with a final video that was 20 minutes long. It was a grueling process. Nevertheless, there was something very different between Lee's recordings and mine other than the obvious abundance of mine. Lee can hold the camera better than I can. My best footage, when I am holding the camera as still as I can possible hold it, using all of my concentration and focus, shows some unacceptable jumpiness and jerkiness.

Lee's footage on the other hand most of the time looks as if he is using a tripod! How can this be I wonder? It occurs to me that I may labor under certain handicaps and impairments day to day that I may be unaware of as limitations that are unique to me. For example, until I saw what was possible to produce when I saw Lee's footage, I never knew that my work was flawed by my unique inability to produce that type of quality. I had assumed that my best was the best.

Not only that, but my flawed output came at great effort on my part. I had to exert significant concentration and focus just to get the modicum of jerkiness with which I ended up. Lee not only could produce nearly flawless results, but he could do it nearly effortlessly. He gave it very little thought as something that required any exceptional effort. It was just not an issue, he simply posses a natural ability to hold the camera steady.

So, it gives me pause to reflect. How many things might there be in my life that serve to draw energy from me, add stress and anxiety, and contribute to feelings of being overwhelmed, that come from dealing with unknown impairments that impede my efforts, that a non-ADD person is not dealing with and so accomplishes what I am attempting either effortlessly or with superior results?

I said that very awkwardly, but it may be possible that a non-ADD person could say it better without any effort at all. I am going to resist the temptation to stress and exert more effort to make this come out better. Hmmm, but what choice do I have? I don't know, but I'm going to let Lee do all of the taping from now on.