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Aimee Mullins sees opportunity in adversity

Aimee Mullins

Photo:Schatz/Ornstein Photography

Aimee Mullins was born without fibula bones in her legs, which were amputated below the knees when she was an infant. A lot of people would consider that condition, occurring so young in life, a pretty big disadvantage. But Mullins likes to think of adversity simply as change to which we haven’t yet adapted. "For most people, adversity is a setback that signals something they have to overcome," she says. "I prefer to see it as an opportunity to use it to discover potential, develop skills and create something new."

Mullins, 33, has become a kind of expert at creating something new, starting with herself. She’s been an intelligence analyst at the Pentagon and a world-record-breaking athlete—with the help of a dazzling collection of prosthetic legs—as well as a fashion model, a motivational speaker and an actress. Her latest creation: activist dedicated to altering perceptions of disability. Mullins recently looked up the word "disabled" in the dictionary and was disturbed by its synonyms: helpless, useless, wrecked, maimed, lame... "It was so shocking," she says, pointing out that with modern prosthetics, losing a limb doesn’t have to represent a "loss" anymore. "Instead, it can be whatever we want it to be." Many people respond to her prosthetics by presuming "a lot about this person’s quality of life," Mullins says. "We do others a great service by not presuming anything. Teenagers don’t even see my legs as abnormal. They recognize them from the video games. They see the potential."

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