Reflection on Robert Reich’s “Why I’m So Short”

I was recently sent Robert Reich’s article “Why I’m So Short’” and was not at all surprised by how wonderful it is. Robert Reich is known for his easy way of explaining complex political, sociological, and economic systems. In this article, he avoids economics entirely and instead talks about living with Fairbanks disease and how it has (and hasn’t) affected his life. Robert Reich is “an inch under 5 feet” and about an inch taller than I am. The article is concise, kind to the reader, and informative.

Robert Reich can be poised in this way because Robert Reich is over it. He is over being short, and he doesn’t think it’s weird at all. And when you consider everything people are, it isn’t. Frankly, I’d be hard-pressed to pick out anyone that Reich worked with during his long political career who didn’t need some medical scrutiny of their own. I mean, he’s worked with some real weirdos : )

Robert Reich is 78 years old, with a loving family and a successful career behind him. If his size ever tormented him, it doesn’t now. And you know what? It’s pretty clear, he didn’t write this essay for himself – he wrote it for me (and you). Fairbanks disease isn’t his baggage; it’s ours.

It isn’t just because I have a rare-genetic-condition-that-affects-the-size-of-my-bones too, that this essay is so important to me. It’s not actually about people with rare-genetic-condition-that-affect-the-size-of-ones-bones, or even about disability on the whole.

Robert Reich is motivated by something bigger than size, and his essay certainly isn’t about bones. The message I take from his piece applies to all of us. “Short” can be replaced with any characteristic: age, race, gender, sexuality, ability…anything at all that defines us to others (for better or worse).

It doesn’t matter what you put here. Robert Reich’s point stands: people aren’t what they look like. They don’t boil down to their traits, and they can’t be reduced to a category. People aren’t their age, race, gender, sexuality, or ability. People can be many things – and they can do even more.

Like, become one of the most widely recognized economists of our time. Literally, who cares about the size of someone’s bones?