If life were a book and you were the author, how would you like the story to go? That is the question that changed my life for ever.

Growing up in a hot Las Vegas desert, all I wanted was to be free. I would daydream about travelling the world, living in a place where it snowed and I would picture all of the stories that I would go on to tell. At the age of nineteen, the day after I graduate from high school, I went to a place where it snowed and I became a massage thereopist there. With the job all I needed were my hands and my massage table by my side and I could go anywhere. For the first time in my life, I felt free, independent, and completely in control of my life. That is until my life took a detour.

I went home from work one day with what I thought was the flue and less than 24 hours later, I was in a hospital on life support with less than 2% chance of living. It wasn’t until days later as I lay in a coma, the doctor diagnosed me with bacterial moningitis, a vaccine preventable blood infection.

Over the course of two and a half months, I lost my spleen, my kidneys, the hearing in my left ear, and both my legs below the knee. When my parents wheeled me out of the hospital, I felt like I had been pieced back together like a patchwork doll. I thought the worst was over until weeks later when I saw my new legs for the first time.

The calves were bulky blocks of metal with pipes bolted together for the ankles and a yellow rubber foot with the raised rubber line from the toe to the ankle to look like a vein. I didn’t know what to expect, but I wasn’t expecting that. With my mum by my side, and tears streaming down our faces, I strapped on these chunky legs and I stood up. They were so painful and so confining that all I could think was: how was I ever going to travel the world in these things, how was I ever going to live the life full of adventures and stories as I always wanted and how was I ever going to snowboard again?

That day, I went home, I crawled into bed, and this is what my life looked like for the next few months. Me passed out, escaping from reality with my legs resting by my side. I was absolutly, physically and emotionally broken. But I knew that in order to move forward, I had to let go of the Old Amy, and I learned to embrace the new Amy.

And that is when it dawned on me that I didn’t have to be 5 foot and 5 any more, I could be as tall as I wanted or as short as I wanted, depending on who I was dating. And if I snowboard again, my feet aren’t going to get cold. And best of all, I thought, I could make my feet the size of all the shoes that were on the sales rack and I did. So there were bebefits here.

It was at this moment that I asked myself that life defining question: If my life were a book and I were the author, how would I want the story to go?

And I began to daydreaming. I daydreamed as I did when I was a little girl and I imagined myself walking gracefully, helping other people through my journey and snowboarding again. And I didn’t just see myself carving down a mountain of powder, I could actually feel it. I could feel the wind against my face, and the beat of my racing heart, as if it were happening at that very moment. And that is when a new chapter in my life began.

Four months later, I was back upon a snowboard, although things didn’t go quite as expected: my knees and my ankles wouldn’t bend and at one point I traumatized all the skiers on the aerial lift when I fell and my legs still attached to my snowboard went flying down the mountain and I was on the top of the mountain still. I was so shocked; I was just as shocked as everybody else and I was so discouraged, but I knew that if I could find the right pair of feet, I would be able to di this again. And this is when I learned our boarders and our obstacles can only do two things: one, stop us in our tracks or two, force us to get creative.

I did a year research and still couldn’t figure out what kind of legs to use, couldn’t find any resources that could help me . So, I decided to make a pair myself. My leg maker and I put random parts together and made a pair of feet that I could snowboard in. As you can see, rusty bolts, rubber, wood, neon pink duct tape. And yes, I can change my toe nail polish. It were these legs and the best 21^st birthday gift I could ever receive---a new kidney from my dad that allowed me to follow my dream again.

I started snowboarding, then I went back to work, then I went back to school. Then in 2005, I co-founded a non-profit organization for youth and young adults with physical disabilities so they could get involved with action sports. From there, I had the opportunity to go to South Africa, where I had to put on thousands of children’s feet so they could attend school. And just this past February, I won 2 back Board World Cup gold medals, which made me the highest ranked adaptive female snowborader in the world.

11 years ago, when I lost my legs, I had no idea what to expect. But if you ask me today if I want to change my situation, I would have to say NO beause my legs haven’t disabled me, if anything, they have enabled me, they forced me to rely on my imagination and to believe the possibilities, and that is why I believe that our imagination can be used as tools for breaking through boarders because in my mind we can do anything and we can be anything. It is believing in these dreams and facing our fears head on that allows us to live our lives beyongd our limits. And although today ia about innovation without boarders, I have to say that in my life, innovation has only been possible because of my boarders. I’ve learned that boarders are where the actual ends and also where the imagination and stories begins.

So the thought that I would challenge you with today may be instead of looking at our challenges and our limitations as something negtive or bad; we can begin looking at them as blessings, magnificent gift that can be used to ignite our imaginations and help us go further than we ever know we could go. It’s not about breaking down border, it is about pushing off them and seeing what amazing places they might bring us.

Thank you!

    艾米珀迪Amy Purdy19岁因病失去双脚，左耳失聪，失去脾脏和肾脏。她凭借顽强的毅力重新站了起来，完成很多人不可思议的成就，并连续三次夺得世界滑雪锦标赛冠军。

以下是她在TED的演讲全文

    假如生活是一本书，而你是作者，那么你会希望自己编写出怎样的故事？而当年正是这个想法改变了我的人生。

    我在炎热的拉斯维加斯的沙漠中长大，我所向往的是自由自在的生活。我做着周游世界的白日梦，想象着能够住在下雪的地方，并把所有想讲的故事一一拍摄出来。19岁那年，高中毕业后的一天，我真的去了下雪的地方，成为了一名按摩治疗师。这份工作只需要用到手，旁边就是按摩桌。那时的我能去任何地方。这是人生中第一次，我感到自由、独立、安全。生活就在我的掌控之中。

    但这时我的生活出现了逆转。一天我感觉自己的了流感便提早回到了家，可是不到24小时，我住进了医院，要靠呼吸机维持生命，并且被告知只有不到2%的存活可能。几天之后，我陷入了昏迷，医生诊断为病毒性脑膜炎，一种疫苗可以预防的血液感染。在接下去的两个半月里，我失去了脾脏、肾脏，失去了左耳的听力，两腿膝盖以下被截肢。当我的父母用轮椅把我从医院推出来的时候，我感觉自己像是被拼起来的玩具人。

    那时我以为最坏的日子已经结束了，但是几周之后，当我第一次看到我的新腿，这才意识到远没有结束。我的支撑棒是笨重的金属块，它用管子与踝关节和黄色的橡胶脚固定在一起，从脚趾到踝关节上凸出来的橡胶线，看上去像静脉。我不知道自己想要什么，但绝对不会是这个。当时我的妈妈在我身旁，我们抱头痛哭，泪如雨下。

    后来，我戴上这粗短的腿站了起来，那可真是太疼了，行动也不利索。我在想，天哪，我要怎么靠这些假肢周游世界？怎么过我想要的充满奇遇和有故事的生活？怎么再去滑雪？那天一到家我就爬上了床。此后几个月，生活都如此，我彻底失去了信念，逃避现实，对假肢置之不理，我在身体上和精神上彻底地崩溃了。但是我知道，生活总要继续，为了过下去，我必须得跟过去的Amy告别，学着接纳新的Amy。我忽然明白，我的身高不必再是固定的5英尺5英寸（1.68m），相反，我想多高就多高，想多矮就多矮，这完全取决于我跟谁约会。如果我去滑雪，那么脚再也不会被冻到。最大的好处是，我的脚能做成任意大小，穿进商场里的任何打折靴子。我做到了，这是没脚的好处！

    这时我问自己，生活该怎么过？假如我的人生是一本书，而我是作者，那么我希望自己拥有怎样的故事？我开始做白日梦，我梦到和小时候一样，幻想自己优雅地走来走去，可以自由地帮助身边的其他人，可以去快乐地滑雪。我不能眼睁睁看着自己一点点消磨时间，我要去感觉，去感觉风拂过我的面庞，感觉我的心跳加速。似乎从那时开始，我的人生开始了新的篇章。

    四个月后，我回到了滑雪场，事情没有想象中那么顺利，我的膝盖和踝关节没办法弯曲。在上行的索道上，有一刻我吓到了所有的滑雪者，我的脚和滑雪板绑在一起飞下了山坡，可我还在山顶上。我当时很震惊，和其他滑雪者一样震惊，但是没有灰心。我知道只有找到合适的脚，我才能再来滑雪。这一次我学到，我们人生的局限和障碍，只会造成两种结局：要么让我们停滞不前，要么逼我们迸发出巨大的创造力。

    我研究了一年，依然没有弄清楚要用哪种脚，也没找到任何能帮到我的厂商，所以我决定自己做。我和我的假肢制造商一起随机地装配零件，我们做了一双能滑雪的脚。你看，生锈的螺栓、橡胶、木头和亮粉色胶带，虽然简陋但我能变换指甲油的颜色哦！这些假肢是我收到最好的21岁生日礼物。

    后来我爸爸给了我一个肾，让我又可以追梦了。我开始滑雪，回去工作，然后回到学校。在2005年的时候我参与投资了一个专为青年残疾人服务的非盈利组织，让他们能参与到极限运动中来。后来，我有幸去到南非，帮助那里成千上万的孩子穿上鞋子使他们能够走路上学。再后来，去年二月，我赢回两座世界滑雪锦标赛金牌，这使我成为世界上滑雪排名最高的女残疾选手。

    11年前，我失去了双脚，我不知道能做什么。但如果今天你问我，是否愿意回头，让我的人生再回到原来的轨道，我的答案是：NO！因为我的脚没有让我失去能力，而是逼我依靠自己的想象力，相信各种可能性，让我相信想象力可以作为工具，打破任何藩篱。因为在我们的意识深处，我们可以做任何事，成为任何人。所以请永远地相信梦想，直面恐惧。让我们活出自我，超越极限！

    虽然今天的主题是关于创新，我的故事看似跑题，但我不得不说，在我的人生里，创新是唯一的可能。因为我的经历让我了解到，那些痛苦与厄运看似是生活的终结，但也正是想象力和故事开始的地方。

    所以我今天想告诉你们的是，不要把人生中的挑战和困难当做坏事，相反你应从正面去看待它们，让它们作为点亮你我想象力的美好礼物。它会帮助我们超越自我、飞跃藩篱，看人生的阻碍到底能为我们带来哪种惊喜。

      链接视频：http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjkwMjEwODMy.html