Being Left Handed – The Struggle

Being Left Handed - The Struggle

Avery Miller, Community Builder Co-Editor, Cougart Editor

To right-handed people, us lefties might be interesting. But behind the unique title and few seconds of awe that come with being different than the 90% of the population are many difficulties that we face in everyday life.

From a young age, I played little league and eventually aged into the world of softball. My coaches stuck me at first base, because it is a “left-handed person position”. First base became my own little island; I had a disadvantage playing almost every other position. Try finding a left-handed glove while playing baseball during PE. If there are two left-handed people, one is going to be forced to shove their left hand in a right handed mitt (and making a fool of themselves when a ball happens to come).

How about cutting paper out? Forget it. All the scissors that the school provides seem to be made for right-handed people. Taking notes at school is another struggle in itself. Spiral notebooks are every left-handed person’s enemy. You can’t write close to the spiral without bending your wrist in an inhuman angle.

Same goes for binders – it’s impossible to write and be able to read it later. Pencil rubs off on your hand after writing for a long time, next thing you know your skin is the color of graphite. White boards are also our greatest enemy. The awesome invention of being able to erase all marks and start fresh is a double-edged sword. As you write the writing gets all messed up.

If you like to cook it can also be a struggle, the can-opener points the wrong way and you are forced to use your right hand. All those cool mugs that you purchased with the cute saying inside the cup look upside down.

Being left-handed isn’t something that you can easily fix, we just learn to deal with it. It’s a right-handed world and we are just living right smack in the middle of it.