MOVIES & SERIESWhat It Means to Be Born Different in a Culture Obsessed With Perfection
The inspiring story behind More Than Able reminds us that some of the qualities that matter most can never be measured on a chart, test, or diagnosis.
A recent viral story reignited a debate about disability, prenatal diagnoses, and what makes a life valuable. While the discussion centered on Down syndrome, the questions at its heart are much bigger.
How do we determine a person’s worth?
What happens when someone is born different?
And how often do we underestimate people before their lives have even begun to unfold?
Those questions sit at the center of More Than Able, a film inspired by the true story of the late Buddy Steele (played by 37-time Special Olympics gold medalist Jacob Price), a man born with cerebral palsy who challenged stereotypes and redefined what others thought was possible.
Like many people born with disabilities, Buddy entered a world where assumptions often arrived before opportunities. People saw limitations. They made predictions. They set expectations.
But Buddy’s life became a powerful reminder that some of the qualities that matter most—determination, resilience, joy, faith, compassion, and purpose—can never be measured on a chart, test, or diagnosis.
The Pressure to Predict a Life
Modern medicine can tell us remarkable things. It can identify risks. Diagnose conditions. And prepare families for challenges ahead.
Those advances have helped countless people. But they have also created a temptation: to believe we can fully understand a life before it has been lived.
A diagnosis can tell us something important. It cannot tell us everything.
It cannot measure kindness. Faith. Perseverance. Love. Character.
And it cannot predict the friendships someone will build, the people they will inspire, or the impact they may have on the world around them.
A Life That Defied Expectations
That’s what makes Buddy’s story so compelling.
Again and again, he encountered people who assumed they knew what his future would look like. They saw his disability before they saw him. They focused on obstacles instead of possibilities. Limitations instead of potential.
But Buddy refused to let those assumptions define his life. Instead, he built a life marked by determination, faith, perseverance, and a refusal to accept that a diagnosis should dictate his future.
That’s what elevates More Than Able, which is currently streaming on EKKL, beyond a simple story about a man with cerebral palsy.
At its core, the film is about the danger of confusing a diagnosis with a destiny. It’s about the labels we place on people. The expectations we create for them. And the ways those assumptions can become self-fulfilling if we’re not careful.
The Problem With Perfection
Buddy’s story raises a larger question about how we value people in the first place.
We live in a culture that constantly asks people to prove their value.
Through achievement. Through productivity. Through appearance. Through performance.
Yet some of the people who shape our lives most profoundly aren’t the ones who fit the world’s definition of perfect.
They’re the people who teach us patience. Perspective. Compassion. Gratitude.
They’re the people who remind us that human dignity isn’t earned through productivity or accomplishment. It exists simply because a person exists.
Life Is More Than Its Limitations
That’s why More Than Able feels especially timely.
At a moment when society is increasingly capable of identifying differences before a child is even born, the film invites us to consider a question that often gets overlooked:
What if a person’s value cannot be measured by ability alone?
What if worth isn’t determined by intelligence, independence, productivity, or achievement?
What if the most important things about a person can never be captured by a test, a chart, or a diagnosis?
Buddy Steele’s story doesn’t ignore hardship. It doesn’t pretend challenges aren’t real.
What it offers is something more powerful: a reminder that every life is more than its limitations.
And in a culture obsessed with perfection, that may be exactly the perspective we need.
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