Celebrate

We celebrate those who succeed ...those who have overcome hardship...those that where faced with poverty....and became rich...those who had hard childhoods and became great responsible citizens....we love the American dream...the ability to overcome all that is put in front of us to become all that you can be...

but let me tell you the American dream is a lie....it only tells us of the few that succeeded...it puts in front of us the picture of a Barack Obama...and tells us this can be you....it makes us believe that we can all be dancing together with Rocky on the stairs of the Philadelphia museum of Art...not seeing the multitudes that are all spread across the lower steps...THEY TRIED TOO...sometimes just as hard..

Surely when we work hard...when we strive for something with all we got we have a greater possibility of achieving what we set our sight on...of becoming that person...But the equation that as long as the person has relative liberty and the willingness to work hard...this will lead to accomplishment of once dreams no matter the circumstance is not true...there are issues of social mobility...issues of discrimination...familial issues...personal issues.....

Let me personalize it...for me if i would not have had family and certain friends stand by me over the last 10 years...only God knows where i would have been....my physical pain would have been an impediment to almost everything i would have tried no matter how hard i would have worked...and all my hard work would not have helped me pay for my further education....and since the almighty didnt bless me with Einstein brilliance a free ride would not have happened either....this is not to say that i should not take advantage of these blessings that have come my way....but i do think the should be placed with in proper perspective..

there are the extraordinary stories of people that rise from little to accomplish so much....but even they often acknowledge how depended they had been on so many things....

we should celebrate them...but i am proposing that maybe we should also celebrate the ones that did not make it...to this glorified status...single mothers who due to a lack of finance and because of parental responsibilities wasted all their talent in order to provide for their children....or people that just stay in the back pages of our papers....if they make it there at all

But even more than that i am suggesting that we might do good to celebrate the people who find themselves in mental institutions because stress and societal pressures had become too much...I am suggesting we celebrate people that committed crime (Notice distinction between the person and the crime) because they did not see another way out...and maybe let me suggest to even celebrate those who committed suicide...those who cheated life...who could not handle it anymore..

I guess this might be hard for some...these people have less in common with us...Everyday i hear this phrase 'I earned this, I earned that'..but beyond the fallacy of that argument..let me suggest to you that you might not be that much different from those...we regard as Failures...
It always surprised me whenever i spend time with homeless people how many genius' were among them...literally some had done so much in their lifetime...that i could live to a 150 and not come close to accomplishing what they did....but then life closed in on them and squeezed them into a corner things went awry....there are also many for whom this happened a lot earlier in life...and hence were left with very little...to stand on.

But these are people that are not easy to celebrate...we often rather consciously or unconsciously stand with the ones that succeed.
Buf if that is true, then i truly wish that we all may fall while climbing the stairs so that we too may know how it is to be among the fallen and hence may be able to celebrate them as well.