Try opening a can opener with your left hand, clumsy? How about giving money to a driver with your left hand? Or pointing out something with your left hand and see the reaction you will get. Now that is the situation that confronts left handed people every day as they go through a world that is so right handed it has left them behind. 13th of August is a day set aside to bring to the attention of all those who operate with their right hand that the world is not just for them only.
A Left handed person is one who prefers or mostly the use of the left hand in major motor activities, they are also known as southpaws and make up to about 15% of the world’s population and there is a probability of this number increasing probably because the tendency for people to force their children to change hands is not as prevalent as it used to be.
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| courtesy : google image |
The left handed person faces challenges and inconveniences daily, most of our educational institutions do not have left handed desk for students. Everything from scissors, can opener /tin cutter to the very computer mouse I am using to write this post is made not with the left handed person in mind. I personally have difficulty using can opener. Until I got to know about left handed day and left handed tools, I never thought much about why I had that difficulty, it didn’t occur to me there could be a left handed can opener. From childhood to now many left handed people including myself have had to deal with this and many more others, it is therefore a miracle in itself that we continue to survive in this right handed dominated world. I have had challenges with taxi drivers who refuse to take fares from me because of my left hand to being asked to stop serving at social gatherings. Its gets tiring having to explain myself why I do things the way I do because of my left-handedness.
However, I have had the privilege to make friends, left handed inclusive because of my left handedness. The fascination is mainly because I am female as there are more left handed males than females
For this year’s International Left hander’s Day celebrations, appreciate a left handed person because they have survived in a right handed world and against the pressure and beatings and societies stigma and remained through to their hand.
Here are some of the famous left handed people. These are distinguished left handers who have excelled in their domain namely politics, entertainment, sports, arts etc
It is quite difficult for left-handed people to live in a world where most tools and machines are designed for right hand use. However, we find that left-handed people all over the world have excelled beyond imagination in every field. Perhaps, it won't be an exaggeration to say that nearly all the noteworthy people in the world were left-handed… even in crime…Osama Bin laden was alleged to be one.
I will end with this quote from The World’s Greatest Left-Handers: Why Left-Handers are Just Plain Better than Everybody Else by James T deKay and Sandy Huffaker: “Left-handers are wired into the artistic half of the brain, which makes them imaginative, creative, surprising, ambiguous, exasperating, stubborn, emotional, witty, obsessive, infuriating, delightful, original, but never, never, dull.”
