We humans … all of us … have built-in defense mechanisms that allow us to tune out certain things.  If you walk frequently in a city, you have likely learned to tune out the homeless person sitting against a building, hoping someone will stop and offer him a meal.  When we pick up our child at school, we rarely notice that tall kid with the holes in his shoes, or the skinny child whose clothes are two sizes too big, or the child being pushed to the bus in a wheelchair.  We become inured to things that would bother us, would disturb our vision of the world we live in, perhaps even give us a twinge of guilt for our own well-being relative to others.

Most of our politicians today are wealthy by almost any standards and have always been so.  They do not notice us … until election day.  And if they don’t notice us, have never spent time with a family mired in poverty, or a person suffering from the effects of AIDS, or a homeless mother and her children living in their car, then they don’t understand the problems of those people.  How could they?

Imagine if, in order to have his or her name on the ballot, a candidate running for Congress had to spend one month living in subsidized housing, living on nothing more than food stamp benefits, a small stipend for non-food items, and not much more to survive on for that month, with zero access to their own wealth or family.  Or imagine if that candidate had to spend 10 hours of every day for a month volunteering in a homeless shelter, food pantry or soup kitchen.  Might it open their eyes and give them a sense of empathy for what the people of their country go through on a daily basis?

Politicians have no idea what life is like for the poor in this nation, and that lack of understanding leads them to make decisions that are in the better interests of the wealthy than the average Joe.  I have long said they all … in both parties and with few exceptions … live in ivory towers far above the madding crowd and have zero understanding of what it’s like to have to live on a tight budget, to serve rice 5 nights a week and maybe chicken once a week for a treat.  They have no comprehension of what it’s like to have to choose between paying the electric bill or taking your asthmatic child to the doctor for a much-needed checkup; between buying food or insulin.

Before astronauts fly into space, they spend days inside of simulators to gain an understanding of what their journey will be like.  But most members of Congress are far removed from the people they represent and have only read about their trials and tribulations, never experienced them first-hand, not even for a day.  Airline pilots receive thousands of hours of training before they are allowed to fly a plane full of a hundred or so passengers, but members of Congress who are responsible for making decisions that affect 330 million lives receive almost no training.  Most members of Congress hold a law degree, not a degree in social work, and in recent years the people have elected members of Congress who didn’t even finish high school!

There’s a saying – walk a mile in my shoes – that seems apropos here.  Granted, no one person can experience all the hardships people go through, but if they lived a month in the life of those less fortunate, might it open their eyes a little?  Might it give them a level of empathy that few have when they first take that oath of office?  And might it weed out those who have no stomach for even a month without the trappings of luxury to which they are so accustomed?   Might it make them more interested in funding those things that help people live better lives rather than space exploration that provides no benefit, or military hardware that destroys lives?  Might it change their priorities just a bit?