I am 36 years old. I am not thirty six years old. The two statements are contradictory, but its how we all look at ourselves. In those quiet moments, at night, away from everything, alone, I am thirty six years old. Though small by comparison to some, the number is nonetheless crushing.
Not in size itself but by what accompanies it, the thoughts, like meteorites, like sucker punches to the gut, hit me. What, in my thirty six years, have I actually done? What accomplishments do I have that make those thirty six years worth something? What inside me is there to answer the claim that those thirty six years have been a fruitless waste?
In the daylight, in the sun, the sound, the heat of everything, distracted by the joyful burden of living, I am not thirty six years old. I am young, and the exploits of my younger self are not so far away. There is possibility, there is chance. In these times 36 is a number, an abstract thing that is not a part of me. It is some shadowy far away concept that doesnt mean anything,
I appreciate these moments of glorious ignorance because they grant me freedom, optimism. But they also grant complacency. Laziness. Maybe I need that thirty six, maybe I need to own that I am ineffective and an underachiever.
Or maybe the answer is something else entirely. I am not a man of great or moving accomplishments. I have not and probably will not ever change the world. I accept that, I own it. But I have come to realize that this does not mean that I have accomplished nothing. I, like everyone else, live simultaneously in two worlds. My immediate world full of my family, my friends, my work, my hobbies. the things I can instantly touch and the things that instantly touch me.
I also live in the real world, made up of other people, my country, other countries, the people on tv, the politicians I elect and the ones I don't elect and the rules they make for me. Most of the time, for most people, these worlds are entirely separate. Most people never see beyond their own world to form a connection between the two.
This is fine, It's tough to do that, especially in times like these when our personal lives are so hard. But to my point, if I look inward, I see not a swath of failure, not a dearth of accomplishment, but a series of personal victories. An achievement doesn't have to be relevant to they entire world to be an achievement.
There is beauty and victory in the ordinary just as much as there is in the extraordinary. I have overcome fears, I have overcome adversity, I have risen above my own limitations, and these are victories just the same as any other. Just because none of this is particularly noteworthy does not make it without worth. This is something important for everyone to realize.
There is another thing to consider. Not a single one of my achievements, not a singe one of my victories, not a single step in all of my thirty six years could have been done without help. Of course when I say that I mean help from my family, my amazing wife and my amazing parents, my brother, my friends. All of whom have supported me, lended hands to help me up when I was down, and supported me when I was up, provided advice and lended courage when I was walking into the unknown. So of course I mean them, but I also mean everyone else.
I mean everyone whose jobs make my life possible, whose work enables my work, whose taxes enable the government to help me when I need it, whose voting elects officials who make rules that create an economy that I can thrive in. I did not get here without them, all of them. We are intertwined, all of us.
There are people like me, who might not ever be a millionaire, or president, or astronaut space cowboy with a jet pack, and there are people like mitt romney who are rich and influential and can do or be anything they want. My accomplishment may be nothing compared to his, but the one thing we have in common is that both of our accomplishments, everything he and I have ever done could not have been done without other people.
Mitt Romney does not believe this, he would like to think of himself, and others like him, as islands of achievement. He would like you to believe that the foundations of his success were built from the sweat of his brow, and that because of that he and other like him should pay less taxes. He wants you to think that asking him to pay a little more is somehow a punishment for his success, a punishment for working hard.
Mitt Romney is not an island but rather a flower on a vine. He couldn't have grown to what he is without the rest of us. He wouldn't have his empire without us. While this idea seems offensive to him and others like him, its true.
Take for example the roman empire, without the labor of the common man the Roman empire would not have thrived and grown. Likewise, without the government providing tax breaks to businesses, the Romney Empire would not have thrived, without the internet, roads and bridges and an incredibly strong and tireless workforce, no business in this country would have thrived and no titans of industry could be created.
When we ask Mitt Romney and others like him to pay three percent more in taxes, we are not punishing his success, we are asking him to pay his fair share, we are asking him to give back to the people that made his success possible. We are asking him to give back to the government whose policies and laws made it possible for his business to grow and succeed making Mitt millions.
The government will then use that money to to make it possible for people like me to take risks and seek success like Mitt Romney has found. the government will also use that money to support me and take care of me if my risks end badly. This is what America is built on, we are all interconnected, we are all in this together. We all live in the same world, and we have all built that world together.
We are responsible to our fellow man because we owe him for our victories, and we owe him our helping hands when he is defeated. This is the core of our country. After all, is this not printed on the statue of liberty: "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free". We take care of people in this country, we all do, and at some point, we have all been cared for by it. We are connected, and asking people like mitt romney to make that connection three percent stronger is not a punishment for success, it is a patriotic request, a reaffirmation of what this country was built on.
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