Your chance to change

When Rick Hoyt was born, his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. Oxygen couldn’t reach his brain, which left him a spastic quadriplegic. His brain couldn’t properly control his body.

Many doctors advised his parents to send him off to a long-term care facility because they believed he would amount to nothing but a vegetable. His parents refused and raised him at home alongside his brothers.

When he was 15, he wanted to participate in a 5-mile run for a paralyzed lacrosse player. His father, Dick, was 36 then and hadn’t been running. But he pushed his son in his ordinary wheelchair for the entire race. After the race, Rick typed his dad a message with his specialized interactive computer:

“Dad, when I’m running, it feels like I’m not handicapped.”

Dick then trained every day by pushing a bag of cement in the empty wheelchair while Rick was at school. Over the next four decades, they completed more than 1,000 athletic events, including 72 marathons and 257 triathlons—together.

Dick wasn’t a runner until his son gave him a reason. We all have a bad habit we want to get rid of, or a good habit we wish we had. To quit drinking, to start exercising, to stop being addicted to our phones. But we lack the motivation to actually do it. Often it takes a major incident, like a health scare, to shake us into taking action.

But you know what? Here’s your chance! Your child has entered your life. It’s a major change that should motivate you to live better.

Don’t waste the opportunity. Do it for yourself. Do it for your child.