Recently I was talking with someone who is a counselor, and he noted that I was writing with my left hand. He was surprised and said that a very small percentage of the population actually is left handed, and that it takes a different kind of thinking to be left handed.
They've done studies on the brain, and how writing left-handed changes the brain. He was even more astounded when I told him that I was right-handed but about 20 years ago I decided to learn to write with my left hand, and got to a point to where I use my left hand to write most of the time now.
I was brought up and spent most of my adult life right handed. I always got gigged on my handwriting because it was messy. My print was called "chicken scratch" by my father, who didn't have much better handwriting than me, but still.
My teachers lowered my grade on my English papers because my handwriting was so bad. I remember papers being given back to me and being told by the teacher that they couldn't read them. And so I would rewrite it and really take my time and do it as neat as I could with my right hand.
Writing fast was necessary because there was so much information to capture in school. When I got to college I scribbled notes all over the place and tried to keep them orderly, but even I when I went back and reviewed them had trouble reading them.
In my professional life handwriting was necessary and so I would consciously slow myself down when I would write on flight strips, when I filled out forms, they were legible but it was hard. In my 40s I got an office job and got off of shift work and had some extra office time on my hands.
I was very analytical and very locked into certain ways of thinking and I was exploring ways of changing the way that I thought so that I could become more creative and maybe less negative and improve in other ways.
I locked in on left-handedness being a complete change of the brain to where the brain would have to remap a lot of different things to make it happen and then to maintain being left-handed I would have to think different.
So I picked up the pen in my left hand and as uncomfortable as it was I started writing.
I was so slow at first but it was so neat and legible. It was amazingly clear because I had slowed down and because I couldn't go fast. It was also so important to me.
It just was easy to read. I did notice that as I got used to it over a couple of years if I sped up it would start to look sloppy but not as bad as my right hand did. Then I'd pick up the pen with my right hand and scribble something and chuckle and start writing with my left hand again.
Once I was proficient with writing with my left hand, I would switch back and forth on purpose just to see what they looked like. I thought about changing my signature but decided that was going to be too much administrative hassle in banking institutions and other places.
I would go in and I would fill everything out with my left hand and put the pen in my right hand and sign it. People would look at me in shock. It was fun. I tried other things with my left hand once I got used to it.
I played ping pong with my left hand and found that I was really good, better than I was right handed. I tried to throw a football and found that that went a lot better. I don't do that very often anyways. I threw a Frisbee left handed and it went wild off course and I was like, that's one thing that's not any better.
It's an interesting experience because I don't get confused about which hand to use, I just do it. I do try to change things up and use my left hand to wash myself and do clothes on the washer and try to use my left hand primarily and that feels weird.
I do live in a right handed world, but I feel I accomplished my objective. I'm a lot more creative and I come up with a lot of different ideas that I don't think I would have ever come up with before.
So being left handed on purpose can be done and I didn't even have to lose a finger or hand to do it.
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