Progress Is A Lie Without Us: A View From My Chair

The view from down here is actually quite clear.

I am writing this while the faint hum of my laptop fan mixes with the street noise outside my window in Tirana. My wheelchair—my constant companion since I left Rimini—creaks slightly as I shift my weight to find a comfortable spot. It is December 3rd, a date the United Nations has circled in red ink on the global calendar . They call it the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

You probably think disability is a niche issue, something unfortunate that happens to "other people" far away from your daily routine. Maybe you believe inclusion is just a nice thing to do, a charity project to feel warm and fuzzy about during the holidays. Or perhaps, deep down, you suspect that people like me are just a drag on the GDP, a line item that costs more than it returns.

Let me shatter that glass house with a single rock.

Over one billion people share this planet with some form of disability . That is fifteen percent of the global population . We are not a statistical error; we are a massive segment of humanity waiting to be fully activated.

Inclusion is not charity; it is physics.

In physics, you cannot ignore friction and expect to calculate the correct speed of an object. Similarly, the UN has finally said the quiet part out loud for 2025. Building a society that fits us isn't some "extra" ethical badge you earn after fixing everything else . It is the baseline requirement for a functioning economy and social cohesion .

If you leave us out, you are trying to run an engine with missing parts.

I look back at my home country, Italy, where the smell of espresso usually signals a busy morning of work and movement. Yet, for 7.6 million disabled citizens there, the morning often starts with barriers rather than opportunities . The numbers are stark enough to make a scientist weep.

Only 33.5% of people with severe disabilities between the ages of 15 and 64 actually have a job in Italy .

Think about that silence in the workforce.

It gets worse when you look closer at the lucky ones who do manage to find employment. Many are stuck in roles that completely ignore their degrees, talents, and fires . Imagine asking a physicist to simply sort mail because you can't imagine him doing anything else from a chair. That is not just unfair; it is a massive waste of human capital.

The cold, hard texture of poverty feels familiar to too many of us.

We are statistically more likely to live in precarious economic conditions simply because we get fewer chances to learn and earn . Wages are lower, and discrimination hangs in the air like stale smoke in a closed room . In many places, the safety nets meant to catch us are full of holes, failing to cover the extra costs that come with our bodies .

Disability and development are not two separate tracks running parallel to each other.

They are the same road .

If we don't have equal access to resources and rights, you cannot call it "progress" . It is just a select club moving forward while locking the doors behind them. We have to stop seeing ramps, screen readers, and flexible hours as costs on a spreadsheet.

They are investments .

A society that removes barriers—whether they are physical stairs or mental prejudices—is a society that produces more . It becomes more innovative because it uses all its brains, not just the ones attached to walking legs.

So, as I sit here in Albania, looking at the stars through my window, I realize something profound. The message from the UN after thirty years is simple yet radical . Inclusion is the only fuel that will actually get us to the future.

Anything else is just spinning our wheels.