Walk a Mile in Your Shoes?

Yes, actually, I have walked it.  I’ve slept in an empty building -- and on the roadside from time to time.  I’ve eaten reheated, day-old baked potato skins for breakfast.  Faced bankruptcy.  Cleaned toilets as a "seasonal worker" when my unemployment benefits expired.

I don’t dwell on those experiences or wallow in self-pity about hard times.  I don’t mention them here as some sort of self-righteous proof of my exceptional character.

Yet, in moments of reflection, I do cry when I remember them.  Not for myself or what I experienced, but for others who face the same hardships I once faced.

Many conservatives extol the virtue – indeed, the necessity -- of “pulling oneself up by the bootstraps” to get ahead in life through one’s own efforts.  In their world view, determination and self-responsibility are all that’s needed.

Nice myth.  But then, we Americans are so in love with our mythology of superiority.  (More on that another time.)

I know that others have had far fewer advantages in life than I’ve had.  (More on that another time, too.  Thanks, Mom and Dad!)  For most people, starting at the bottom -- with no support, no resources, and no love – makes “self-determination” and “true grit” virtually impossible.  Sometimes people are so far behind that they can never catch up.  They deserve our understanding, compassion, and help.

Copyright © 2017-11-15, Mike Kruchoski, All Rights Reserved.