When President Obama gave his famous words of wisdom during a speech, “You Didn’t Build That” as shown in the video below, I will admit at the time I didn’t have any idea where that angle came from.
Fortunately, cross referencing is a hell of a drug. I stumbled upon some ancient wisdom from King Solomon in proverbs 11:2, and no it has nothing to do with religion for me but it states:
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.”
This was pulled from the New International Version just for your information in case your bible says something different.
But what does this passage mean exactly?
With pride comes disgrace. People that are too proud can become arrogant and conceited. They believe they are smarter and better than others, this causes them to do very very stupid things. They oftentimes ignore due diligence and overlook things which causes them to fall, and fall hard they will.
After they fall they are disgraced, I mean they probably talked up a lot of big game and said a lot of things on the way only to show up and fail. Makes you feel like an idiot after you fall.
But when you are full of humility, you are more humble and appreciative. This is where true wisdom comes from. Humility is the counter to pride and will help you keep it in check so that you can avoid the fall. It is through the examination of true humility, as stated by Steven K. Scott, that I started to draw parallels between what King Solomon said and what President Obama said.
Steven K. Scott believes true humility begins with a heartfelt belief that others have made it possible for you to have everything in life that you value. When a person truly believes that, they carry with them the eager and grateful spirit of a learner, one who welcomes and values the input and contributions of others. It is easy for a learner to honor the opinions, points of view, and the genuine needs of others. In fact, one of the most admired traits of the truly humble is their inclination, when necessary, to put other people’s needs above their own.
Sounds awfully similar to President Obama’s speech right?
So was President Obama’s message just one of humility? Was it truly a noble and biblical cause that he was pursuing when he said that?
I examined it a step further.
A colleague of mine, James, from http://www.jamosmith.com, brought up some very important distinctions between King Solomon’s noble advice and President Obamas message that everyone should take into consideration.
First, I believe it is undisputed and somewhat obvious, that if you are successful in life that someone did indeed help you. The message and speech the president gave was powerful and fairly accurate, the problem with his message is the forced results he wants.
People oftentimes fail to give credit to the people they meet along the way that helped them to get to the point they were at. Taking credit for everything you have in your life is pride and ego based and unfortunately, you really didn’t build that. Somewhere along the way someone else helped you along.
Whether you dropped out of school to pursue another route or you finished school and got a degree. Whether you had a job a friend helped you to get or you got a ride from someone. There are literally thousands of ways others have helped every person not just the successful ones.
Where did my success start?
It started with a book I read that led me to something else and then to something else and here I am writing. But before that, you have to examine how I got to the point of reading that book. Whether an author wrote something for me to read, a teacher taught me something, a friend helped me somewhere, or someone or something had a great influence in my life, the fact is, someone else made that for me.
Now where I can take credit is that I took the initiative to find all of these resources but factually speaking, someone else made these things for me and without them, I wouldn’t have the philosophy or the mentality I have right now to get to where I got to, so I am thankful and grateful for these things and people that helped me along the way.
The President’s message is right on.
But where most would disagree, including my colleague, is that President Obama thinks the successful should be taxed and be forced to pay more because of their success. Basically, he wants to force people to contribute to the success of others. And unfortunately, that’s just not how it works.
Everyone who gave something to you along the way did so voluntarily for mutual benefit. If someone wrote a book for you to read, they probably received compensation for it. If someone gave you a ride, you probably owed them a favor, or they got their fulfillment in just serving you that day. Whatever the case, someone else did that for you, but someone else also did so voluntarily, and someone else got something in return for doing it.
You cannot force kindness, you cannot force giving, and passing laws and regulations or taxing people for their success is counterintuitive to how the system works.
The results will be and are clear now, the more you tax someone, the less initiative they have to become successful. Some leave the country, some give up, but most importantly, everyone suffers. Redistributing wealth to those who don’t have the initiative and drive to do things will not create more successful people, it will create people who are lazy and don’t do anything because they have it easy (oops did I just defend half of America?)
Remember, you didn’t build that, but without your initiative and drive, it wouldn’t have been built at all.
The phrase “you didn’t build that” really begs the question what individual accomplish really /is/. It’s just a word, anyways. Credit for accomplishment is a cultural distinction, and I think it’s very very important to allow people to have their own accomplishments. For that reason, we should reject the notion that people’s accomplishment’s aren’t theres while simultaneously acknowledging that one’s accomplishments are the result of more variable then just themselves.
You could also mention that, while two voluntary interactions between people are necessarily perceived as the most beneficial options for each individual at that time. The opposite of that, coercion and force, are NOT perceived as the most beneficial options. So the things that Obama is trying to correct for: external inputs to other’s accomplishments; are actually being CREATED when you take from one to give to another. So he’s really just making the problem of entitlements worse :(. Now I feel like I deserve my $100,000 in tax money back 🙁 and I do.
You mentioned that humility is the counter to pride. Why can’t pride and humility exist together? Why is pride necessarily a vice and not a virtue along with humility?