Quote from Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind climber to scale Mt. Everest and author of Touch the Top of the World:

My friend Hugh Herr lost both legs in an ice-climbing accident; he became an engineer and developed prosthetic legs and feet made out of rubber, and he’s a better climber now than ever. I call people like him alchemists. You can pile a lot of lead on them, but they’ll figure out a way to transform it into something good. Life isn’t fair. You’ve just got to take what happens and make it work for you. So when I’m climbing some hard rock 1,000 feet up, I’m not thinking, “If I could see that hold up there, life would be so much easier.” I just think, “Thank God I’m up here.”