I Choose To Be Happy Lizzie Valasquez at TEDxYouth@Austin

Inspiring!

Born with no adipose tissue, Lizzie Velasquez is a 60-pound, 23-year-old woman on a mission to share her story. She wants to teach people to look beyond the exterior, their own and others’, to help them acknowledge and embrace their inner beauty.

Only three people in the world have the condition that makes her so unique, and doctors are uncertain what it is. Her body is unable to store fat or muscle. One of her eyes is blind; the other has limited vision. Her appearance can be startling at first glance.

Velasquez is no stranger to bullying. Some people stare, make ugly comments or send vicious e-mails, but this gutsy young woman has the grit to speak out. She is honest about the pain it causes her, though she refuses to let anything stop her.

Lizzie's Website

Book: Be Beautiful, Be You

Source: #545 Lizzie Velasquez is beautiful

Secret Lives of Seniors: 97-Year-Old Breaks Track Record! - Our America

Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN)
http://www.oprah.com/own-our-america-lisa-ling/Secret-Lives-of-Seniors-97-Year-Old-Breaks-Track-Record-Video

The Amy Racina Survival story on the Montel Show

Miracle in the Wilderness—Amy Racina
Wendy Patterson, San Francisco Chronicle

Every day is a good day for Amy Racina. It wasn't always that way, but crashing 60 feet into a granite ravine changed her perspective. A seasoned backpacker, Racina was on a solo trip two years ago in the Tehipite Valley, a seldom-visited area of Kings Canyon National Park, which is in the southern end of the Sierra Nevada in California. She was 12 days into a 162-mile trip when she lost the trail she was on. As she carefully crisscrossed down the valley looking for the trail, the ground suddenly gave way and she found herself careening through the air.

"So this is how it ends," she thought in the seconds before she slammed into a granite ravine. The fall nearly killed Racina, but the miracle -- the first of many -- was that it didn't.

Racina has published a book recounting her rescue and arduous recovery. Angels in the Wilderness ... is titled for the three hikers who saved her life after they came upon her even though she had been off-trail when she fell in a remote area visited only by a handful of people each season.

Racina, 48, has been backpacking since she was 16. She frequently hikes in the Sierra, logging thousands of miles, many of them alone. She is a backpacker's backpacker, so obsessive about reducing the weight in her pack that she cuts the edges off maps. She is a single mom of a teenage son and runs two small businesses ... out of her home with a determined, no-nonsense personality.

Read the full story on the San Francisco Chronicle:  Miracle in the wilderness / Book relates solo backpacker's 60-foot fall and fight for life before luck lends a hand

It Couldn't be Done

Poem by Edgar Guest

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,

But, he with a chuckle replied

That "maybe it couldn't" but he would be one

Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

On his face. If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done, as he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that;

At least no one we know has done it";

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,

And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

There are thousands to prophesy failure;

There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,

The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle right in with a bit of a grin,

Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start to sing as you tackle the thing

That cannot be done, and you'll do it.

Image licensed under Bigstockphoto.com