Giving up is conceding that things will never get better, and that is just not true. Ups and downs are a constant in life, and I've been belted into that roller coaster a thousand times.
People presume my disability has to do with being an amputee, but that's not the case; our insecurities are our disabilities, and I struggle with those as does everyone.
I think that everyone has something about themselves that they feel is their weakness... their 'disability.' And I'm certain we all have one, because I think of a disability as being anything which undermines our belief and confidence in our own abilities.
At some point in every person's life, you will need an assisted medical device - whether it's your glasses, your contacts, or as you age and you have a hip replacement or a knee replacement or a pacemaker. The prosthetic generation is all around us.
If we want to discover the full potential in our humanity, we need to celebrate those heartbreaking strengths and those glorious disabilities that we all have...it is our humanity, and all the potential within it that makes us beautiful.
The best beauty secret, besides sleep and plenty of water, is do whatever it is - before you go out, before you need to feel beautiful - do whatever makes you feel confident. If it’s putting on a great dance record and rocking out in your apartment, do it. If kissing someone for 10 minutes makes you feel confident, do it.
I've had journalists asking me, 'What do we call you - is it handicapped, are you disabled, physically challenged?' I said, 'Well hopefully you could just call me Aimee. But if you have to describe it, I'm a bilateral below-the-knee amputee.'
When I'm curious about something, I do it full on and take it as far as I go, but when I feel like I've really explored it, I'm OK with putting it aside and going on to something else.
We all bullet point our triumphs, but I am who I am because of everything you don't see on my CV. The stuff that doesn't work out teaches you how to trust your instincts and adapt.
Half of Hollywood has more prosthetic in their body than I do, but we don't think of them as disabled. You amputate part of a nose, that's 'enhancement'. You put a prosthetic in a breast cavity, that's 'augmentation'. But you amputate part of a limb and put a prosthetic there, it's 'disability'?