It’s not so often that we get to see someone so rich and famous being so real, and its even less often when that someone sounds remotely conservative. But then here we are listening to Ashton Kutcher’s speech at the Teen Choice awards.
Ashton said a lot of good stuff in his short speech but one thing sticks out to me more than the rest. One of the first things he said to this audience full of juvenile girls screaming his at him was “I feel like a fraud.” I love that, and the reason I do is the humility of it. He knows deep down he is just like you and me, that he’s no better than any of us. He even takes it another step and reveals that Ashton is really his middle name and he was never called Ashton until he turned 19 and his acting career began taking off. The name he went by growing up, his real name if you will, was ‘Chris’. He knows he’s still ‘Chris’ and proceeds to talk, not about his life as Ashton but about a few things he learned from his life as ‘Chris’.
And that’s when he talked about the grocery store job and the job carrying roofing shingles and the dish washing job he had and the custodial job he had growing up. And then he said something that continues this thread of humility: “I’ve never had a job in my life that I was better than.” Wow, that is something coming from someone as rich and famous as he is and it’s a great message for these teenagers to hear.
Listen to the whole speech (it’s short). I think you’ll find it quite a bit more ‘grounded’ than you’d have ever imagined.
(h/t: Allahpundit)