What Special Olympians Taught Timothy Shriver About Real Fun
 

As a young man, Timothy Shriver grew up watching his mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, change how society viewed children with disabilities. She founded Camp Shriver in their own backyard, providing a place where children with all ability levels could run, swim, and ride horses. In 1968, she expanded the organization into the first-ever Special Olympics held at Chicago's Soldier Field.

In his memoir, Fully Alive, Timothy writes about how spending time with the children on his family's farm was his first hint of the world's spiritual complexity. Now the Chairman of the Special Olympics, Timothy says some of his greatest life lessons have come from Special Olympic athletes.

"I think, for me, it's all about leaving it all on the court," Timothy says in his above "Super Soul Sunday" interview with Oprah. "The athletes taught me the fun that comes from not being inhibited."

Most people, he says, think "fun" and "soul" are two different things. In reality, Timothy believes they are one in the same.

"Fun is really living directly from your soul," Oprah agrees.

Along with teaching him to live without inhibitions, Timothy says the Special Olympic athletes have also given him lessons on humility, simplicity, and trust.

"Trusting the world with your dreams is scary for most of us," Timothy says. "But these athletes taught me [that] even if you get disappointed, even if the world doesn't come through for you, do it again."

More: The incredible act of kindness Timothy Shriver witnessed at the first Special Olympics.

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