Whoa, I'm running short of words right now but I cannot afford this because I have to speak. Thank you so much for all the love, for all the warmth. Thank you for accepting me. Thank you very much. Well, I always start my talk with a disclaimer（否认或放弃的声明）. And that disclaimer is that I've never claimed to be a motivational speaker.

  Yes, I do speak, but I feel more like a storyteller because wherever（无论在哪里） I go, I share a story with everyone. Well, it is a story of a woman who's perfectly imperfect（有缺点的） life made her who and what she is today. It's the story of a woman who in pursuit（ 追赶） of her dreams and aspirations（渴望） made other people realize that if you think that your life is hard and you're giving up on that because you think your life is unfair, think again, because when you think that way, you are being unfair to your own self（自己）. It's the story of a woman who made people realize that sometimes problems are not too big. We are too small because we cannot handle（拿） them. It is the story of a woman who we time（计时） realized that real happiness doesn't lie in success, money, fame（名声）.

  It lies within real happiness lies in gratitude. So I am here and I'm going to share the story of that woman. That is my story, the story of gratitude. I love you too. I love you all. I believe in the power of words.

  Many people speak before they think, but I know the value of words. The words can make you, break you, they can heal（治愈） your soul（ 灵魂）, they can damage you forever. So I always try to use the positive words in my life wherever I go. They call it adversity（不幸）, I call it opportunity, they call it weakness（虚弱）, I call it strength. They call me disabled（ 残疾的）, I call myself differently abled. They see my disability（残疾）.

  They see my disability, I see my ability. There are some incidents（事件） that happen in your life. And those incidents are so strong that they change your DNA. Those incidents or accidents are so strong that they break you physically. They deform（使变形） your body, but they transform（改变） your soul（ 灵魂）. Those incidents break you, deform you, but they mold（塑造） you into the best version of you.

  And the same thing happened to me. And I'm going to share what exactly happened to me. I was 18 years old when I got married. And this thing I'm sharing for the very first time on an international level. I was 18 years old when I got married. I belonged to a very conservative（保守的） family, a Beloch family, where good daughters never say no to their parents.

  My father wanted me to get married. All I said was, if that makes you happy, I'll say yes. And of course, it was never a happy marriage. Just about after two years of getting married, about nine years ago, I met a car accident. Somehow（由于某种原因） my husband fell asleep and the car fell in the ditch（沟）. He managed to jump out, saved himself.

  I'm happy for him. But I stayed inside the car and I sustained（支撑） a lot of injuries. The list is a bit long. Don't get scared. I'm perfectly fine now. Radius（半径） ulna of my right arm were fractured.

  The wrist（腕） was fractured. Shoulder bone and collar bone were fractured. My whole rib（肋骨） cage got fractured（破裂）. And because of the rib cage injury, lungs（肺） and liver（肝） were badly injured. I couldn't breathe. I lost urinal bowel（肠） control.

  That's why I have to wear the bag wherever I go. But that injury that changed me and my life completely as a person and my perception（理解感知） towards living my life was the spine（脊柱） injury. Free vertebra of my backbone（支柱） were completely crushed（压碎） and I got paralyzed（瘫痪） for the rest of my life. So this accident took place in a far flung area in the outskirts（外边） of a very small province（省）, Balochistan, where there was no first aid（帮助）, no hospital, no ambulance（[车辆][医] 救护车）. I was in the middle of nowhere in that toppled（倾倒） car. Many people came to rescue（营救）.

  They gave me CPR. They dragged（拖） me out of the car. And while they were dragging me out, I got the complete transaction（办理） of my spinal（脊髓麻醉） cord（细绳）. And now there was this debate（争论） going on. Should we keep it here? She's going to die.

  Where should we go? There is no ambulance. There was this four-wheeler jeep standing（站立） in the corner of the street. They said, "Put her in the back of the jeep and take her to the hospital, which is three hours away from this place." And I still remember that bumpy ride. I was all broken.

  They threw me at the back of the jeep and they rushed（冲） me to the hospital. That is where I realized that my half body was fractured and half was paralyzed. I finally ended up in a hospital where I stayed for two and a half months. I underwent（经历） multiple（多重的） surgeries（外科）. Doctors have put a lot of titanium（[化]钛） in my arm. There's a lot of titanium at my back to fix my back.

  That's why people in Pakistan（巴基斯坦(南亚国家)） call me the Iron Lady of Pakistan（巴基斯坦(南亚国家)）. Sometimes I wonder how easy it is for me to describe all this all over again. And somebody has rightly（正确地） said that when you share your story and it doesn't make you cry, that means you have healed. Those two and a half months in the hospital were dreadful（可怕的）. I will not make up stories just to inspire（激发） you. I was at the verge（边缘） of despair.

  One day, a doctor came to me and he said, "Well, I heard that you wanted to be an artist, but you ended up being a housewife. I have bad news for you." You won't be able to paint again because your wrist and your arm are so deformed, you won't be able to hold a pen again. And I stayed quiet. The next day, a doctor came to me and said, "Your spine injury is so bad, you won't be able to walk again." I took a deep breath and I said, "It's all right." The next day, a doctor came to me and said, "Because of your spine injury and the fixation（固定） that you have in your back, you won't be able to give birth to a child again."

  That day, I was devastated（毁坏）. I still remember. I asked my mother, "Why me?" And that is where I started to question my existence（存在）. Why am I even alive? What's the point of living? I cannot walk.

  I cannot paint. Fine（美好的）. I cannot be a mother. And we have this thing in our heads being women that we are incomplete（ 不完全的） without having children. I am going to be an incomplete woman for the rest of my life. What's the point?

  People are scared. They think I will get divorced（与……离婚）. What is going to happen to me? Why me? Why am I alive? We all try to chase（追逐） this tunnel（隧道）.

  We all do this because we see light in the end of the tunnel, which keeps us going. My dear friends, in my situation, there was a tunnel that I had to roll on, but there was no light. And that is where I realized that the words have the power to heal the soul. My mother said to me, "This too shall pass. God has a greater plan for you." I don't know what it is, but he surely has. And in all that distress（悲痛） and grief（悲痛）, somehow or the other, those words were so magical（魔术的） that they kept me going.

  I was trying to put that smile on my face all the time. It was so hard to hide the pain, which was there. But all I knew was that if I will give up, my mother and my brothers will give up too. I cannot see them crying with me. So what kept me going was, one day I asked my brothers, "I know I have a deformed hand, but I'm tired of looking at these white walls in the hospital and wearing these white scrubs（矮树）. I'm getting tired of this. I want to add more colors to my life. I want to do something. Bring me some colors. Bring me some small canvas（粗帆布）. I want to paint." So the very first painting I made was on my deathbed, where I painted for the very first time.

  It was not just an art piece or just my passion. It was my therapy（治疗）. What an amazing therapy it was. Without a single word, I could paint my heart out. I could share my story. People used to come and say, "What lovely painting. So much color. Nobody could see the grief in it. Only I could."

  So that's how I spent two and a half months in my hospital, crying, never complaining or whining, but painting. And then I was discharged（卸下） and I went back home. And I went back home and I realized that I have developed a lot of pressure ulcers on my back and on my hip（臀部） bone. I was unable to sit. There were a lot of infections（感染） in my body, a lot of allergies. So doctors wanted me to lie down on the bed straight for not six months, for not one year.

  For two years, I was bedridden, confined（限制） in that one room, looking outside the window, listening to the birds chirping and thinking, "Maybe there will be a time when we'll be going out with the family and enjoying the nature." That was the time where I realized how lucky people are, but they don't realize. That is the time where I realized that the day I'm going to sit, I'm going to share this pain with everyone to make them realize how blessed they are and they don't even consider them lucky. There are always turning points in your life. There was a rebirth（再生） day that I celebrated. After two years and two and a half months when I was able to sit on a wheelchair, that was the day when I had the rebirth.

  I was a completely different person. I still remember the day I sat on the wheelchair for the first time knowing that I'm never going to leave this, knowing that I won't be able to walk for the rest of my life.