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Does Stumbling Disqualify Me from the Presidency?

Mitch Arnold • Jan 13, 2024

A current political commercial includes a video clip of a politician stumbling while climbing up the stairs to Air Force One. The clip doesn’t mention the stumble, but the clear intended implication is that a president who struggles climbing stairs is unfit for office. Maybe I just don’t understand how important stair-climbing is to the duties of the United States president, but this seems like an insensitive cheap shot from the campaign of someone who purports to be deserving of the office.


Before I step on any toes, I should point out that this post isn’t intended as a political piece. Personally, I don’t care for, and won’t vote for, either of the candidates who appear to be leading the race. My issue is with using a physical handicap as a barometer for competence, and it’s personal.


Though Joe Biden is nearly 30 years older than me, he is much better at climbing stairs than I am. In fact, I don’t know if I could climb the stairs to Air Force One, but I’m sure that if I were president, someone would figure out how to get me on the plane. Sadly, that will almost certainly not happen – not because I don’t want to be president of the United States (I don’t); instead, my handicap would negatively affect my electability. A guy with obvious mobility issues like me wouldn’t have a chance to prove that he was otherwise capable and competent.


Even though a septuagenarian and an octogenarian are leading the race for the nation’s top office, we are a society that equates youth and physical appearance with competence, trust and admiration. We prefer and admire those who seem to “have it all together” over those who have obvious challenges, like the elderly and the handicapped.


Such discrimination is really no one’s fault. We’re all chasing an ideal. We want to appear as young, attractive and successful as possible, because that’s what is constantly modeled in the media and entertainment industry. Because we rarely see the elderly and disabled in key roles, we don’t consider them worthy or capable, but that blinds us to the potential of those we overlook.


Ironically, if we’re lucky, we’re all going to become old, and when we’re old, we’re likely to experience physical challenges. Though the pharmaceutical commercials want us to believe that we’re going to be active and healthy until that day that we topple over into our graves, that’s not reality. It’s much more likely that we’ll face a slow physical regression in our waning years. We’re not going to be any less viable or alive, yet the world around us will start to write us off.


I occasionally experience that, especially when I travel. Riding in my wheelchair with my wife pushing, I see check-in people at the airport, and front desk staff at hotels and restaurants, look right over my head and address my wife, while ignoring me. I get it. Time is often short, and I likely represent an obstacle to smooth check-ins. I’m also pretty sure that most people don’t handle interactions with people like me very well, because they’re unprepared and uncomfortable, and they subconsciously at least, see us as less worthy of their attention.



Don’t be that way. It’s been my experience that some of the most pleasant people you’ll meet are handicapped and/or elderly. Engage with us. Maybe even show a little compassion. We’ll likely reward your effort with a smile and maybe even inject a little optimism into your day. Most of all, don’t view our challenges as an indication of our competence, especially if you want our vote.

By Mitch Arnold 14 May, 2024
Midwesterners are aware of the devastating potential of tornadoes, but we don’t live our lives with one eye on the sky. In fact, we don’t worry too much at all about them, even when the weather is favorable for their appearance. When they happen, however, they remind us of our vulnerability. My recent experience also reminded me of the importance of compassion. The forecast three Fridays ago told us that tornadoes could emerge from the strong storms forecast to begin in my area in the mid- to late-afternoon. That’s not uncommon around here for this time of year, so I made a mental note of the threat and went on with my day. I was working from my home office when the first alert appeared on my phone at about 3 pm. I could see clouds to the south and west, but nothing appeared ominous. Then, the siren sounded. We hear sirens two or three times every year. Usually, that means that a tornado warning has been issued for the county, but it doesn’t always mean that there is a storm in our part of the county. Normally, I explain that to my wife, while she argues with me to hide in the basement. Lynda was at work 30 miles away, so I didn’t have that argument. Instead, I turned on the television and saw that the storm could possibly be headed in my direction, though there hadn’t been a visual confirmation of a tornado. Ironically, the sirens then stopped, so I went out on my patio to get a closer look at the clouds. The clouds didn’t look any worse than they had a few minutes earlier. In fact, I saw golfers on the tee box, continuing their rounds. When the sirens sounded a second time, just a few minutes later, I decided to pay closer attention to the television. I was steps away from the safe room in my basement, and my cell phone was in my pocket, in case I needed to scurry away to safety. Instead, I saw live footage of a massive tornado on the ground about five miles to the northwest and heading away from me. Since my house and I were safe, at least for the moment, my thoughts drifted to friends and family in the path of the storm. It's amazing how quickly the human spirit can leave self-absorption and find compassion, when a threat is removed. Minutes earlier, I was preoccupied with thoughts of what I would do if my home was severely damaged or destroyed. Now, I was thinking of others facing that same threat. That realization made me think of how many of us, myself included, live that way every day. We get so consumed with everything that’s going in our lives that we often forget to consider others. That’s not an indictment of character; it’s simply the human condition. The challenge is to be compassionate while still attending to our needs, and it’s a challenge I face almost every time I board a flight. Moving around in the tight quarters of an airplane is difficult for me, as is getting in and out of those seats. Plus, going down the taxiway takes me longer, so I pre-board whenever possible. Typically, there are three to as many as ten of us doing the same thing – all of us hoping for an uneventful boarding and convenient seatings. As I wait with this group, I survey the competition, trying to determine who needs the front row seats more than I do. When I board, I try to leave the best seats for those who appear to need them the most. That’s obviously an inexact science, and I’ve missed before, but I try to balance compassion with my own needs.  I need to get better doing the same thing away from the airport, and my experience with the tornado reminded me of that. Apparently, a lot of people had a similar awakening, as volunteers almost overwhelmed the coordinators responding to the storm. Driven by compassion awakened by the tornadoes, strangers from all over showed up for the unpleasant work of cleaning up from a storm, and they continued for weeks afterward. While it’s affirming that compassion is so abundant within us, let’s not wait for a tornado to share it.
By Mitch Arnold 20 Apr, 2024
The winner of the 2024 Masters golf tournament, Scottie Scheffler, is dominating professional golf in a way not seen since Tiger Woods’ peak years. Including the Masters, he has won three of the last four tournaments, and has been 100 strokes better than the world’s second-ranked golfer over the last two years. What he said after his most recent win revealed his not-so-guarded secret. "Because, like I said, winning this golf tournament does not change my identity. My identity is secure, and I cannot emphasize that enough." He continued, “"I believe that today's plans were already laid out many years ago, and I could do nothing to mess up those plans. I have been given a gift of this talent, and I use it for God's glory. That's pretty much it." That strong sense of self was critical to his success, especially when he temporarily lost the lead in the first few holes on the tournament’s final day. Many of the world’s top golfers have collapsed when entering the final round of the Masters with the lead, the pressure and fear of losing throwing them off just enough to allow the elite competition behind them to surge ahead. That didn’t happen to Scheffler, because he had crafted his perspective to find inner peace. Imagine if we approached life’s challenges with a similar mindset – “. . . today's plans were already laid out many years ago, and I could do nothing to mess up those plans.” Easier said than done, I know, but it’s worth trying. Despite being more than 25 years his senior, I’m still working on achieving the constant inner peace that Scottie Scheffler seems to have, and I suspect that I’m not alone. We forget that we don’t control as much as we think we do or might want to control, and we let minor challenges derail our perspectives. We can avoid all of that if we carefully craft our perspectives. The first step to doing that is to trust yourself, and the first step to trusting yourself is to prepare yourself for success. Scheffler didn’t just show up at Augusta and start swinging a club. He had spent thousands of hours over his 27 years preparing for big moments like the final round of the Masters. He knows that he has done everything he can to be as good as he possibly can. When he temporarily lost the lead, he knew that all he needed to do was trust himself and his preparation. The second step to building a carefully crafted perspective is to accept that you can’t control everything. Scheffler knew that the accuracy of his shots would be affected by elements beyond his control, like wind gusts and bad bounces. He also knew that his fellow competitors were extremely talented, and had worked hard to put themselves in contention to win the tournament. Any one of them was capable of playing the round of their lives and overtaking him. He couldn’t control that. The final and probably most important step in building a carefully crafted perspective is to have faith that a higher power is orchestrating everything for an ideal outcome that we might not understand, but will have to accept. Having faith like that frees us from the fear of failure. If failure happens, it doesn’t change who we are.  Scottie Scheffler showed us how to succeed by remaining calm under enormous pressure. If we want to have success and find inner peace in our own lives, it’s up to us to craft our perspectives in a similar way. If we do that, there’s no way we can lose.
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