「故事·听力」My Struggle With Being Left handed

My Struggle With Being Left handed

Hi, this is Ellen, and she’s left-handed!

People often ask her questions about being left-handed. At some point, those questions became quite annoying, but then she realized that people were just curious about it. So she thought, “why not share my experience with everyone on the internet?” And so here she is!

Ellen wouldn’t describe her life as “difficult”, but every left-handed person would probably agree with her that the whole world is made to work primarily for right-handed people. That’s understandable, because only 10% of all people in the world are left-handed.

First of all, you can’t imagine how difficult it is to use something as simple as a pair of scissors. When Ellen’s trying to cut something, it’s almost impossible to do it an a straight line, and sometimes she can't cut anything at all! It’s the same with many other simple things as well; they just become so difficult and it makes her look really clumsy.

Thankfully, left-handed scissors exist, and she ALWAYS carries them around with her in case she needs them.

The fact is that everything that’s super comfortable for right-handed people will be a little bit uncomfortable for lefties. Like, when Ellen’s writing in a notebook, she always has ink on the side of her hand because she has to place it on the part of the page where there’s already something written. There’s even a name for this – it’s called “silver surfer syndrome”, you can google it!

And oh, it’s so hard to open cans. Just try doing it with your left hand! It’s almost impossible!

These are just small things, but there are hundreds of them. But she’s got used to them. What Ellen can’t get used to are the QUESTIONS.

Seriously, any lefty can relate to these questions: “how can you write like that?” or “why are you left-handed?” She has no idea how she can write like that! She does it the same way you do! And why on Earth would she know why she’s left-handed?

And every time they say “oh, I have a friend\relative who is left-handed,” she thinks to herself oh, that’s nice, but it’s not like we need to be told about it all the time…

People often say that left-handed people are more creative, and there are a lot of weird “facts” about them, like they’re supposedly more prone to mental illness and alcoholism, and they’re more emotional than right-handed people.

But to Ellen that all sounds so weird and unrealistic! It’s not like right-handed people can’t be creative or emotional, right?

You might think that Ellen doesn’t like being left-handed, because she experiences all these little difficulties every day, but in reality...she loves it! It’s always felt like she’s in a secret society or something. She always notices when someone on TV uses their left hand, and then she instantly falls in love with that character!

She doesn’t actually think that being left-handed makes her SPECIAL, but it sure does feel like it sometimes!

And in general, there are many benefits to being left-handed. For example, many left-handed athletes have an advantage because other athletes aren’t used to left-handed opponents.

And also, if you read history, you’ll notice that left-handed people were treated badly in the past – many thought that being left-handed meant that you were evil. Think about it – even when we say that someone is correct, we say “right”!

But now it’s much better. Her parents even read a book about raising a left-handed child, because it turns out that they have slightly different ways of learning and doing stuff. It’s not that they’re any less intelligent, it’s just that they sometimes learn better by using other approaches, especially if it involves doing something with your hands.

Despite the fact she’s a bit sceptical about left-handed people being more creative, Ellen does tend to like creative stuff more. It’s not that she dislikes science or math, but she is much better at more creative subjects like art and literature.

She’s very proud of being left-handed, and the older she gets, the less she feels stressed about it. People now ask fewer questions about it, and most don’t even care, and she likes that! But if you’re right-handed and want to ask a question about being a lefty, feel free to do so – but please don’t ask questions like “how do you write like that?” because they probably won’t be able to answer!