the dream and the promise
So, you'll have to pardon me. I'm watching the Obama Inaugural Celebration on hbo.com and getting all weepy. But it occurs to me at this particular moment in time that it's easier for me to explain why I'm majoring in public service...
I feel like our election of the best man for the job, regardless of his skin color, is the beginning of the delivery on the promise of America. I have always believed in my country, have always been proud of the ideals that we strive for, even when I am disappointed in our ability to achieve those ideals.
And I wanted to help. I wanted to be a part of the solution, and I wanted to lend my arms, my head, and above all, my heart, to that ideal. I wanted to know, at the end of my career, that I did something worthy with my time - something which helped more than me, more than my child, more than my heirs.
I want to believe that there are answers to our problems - poverty, inequality, racism, and the whole host of other seemingly intractable problems we face together. I know there may not be total solutions, and that I might have to accept partial solutions, or even barely adequate solutions... but I want to do something hard. I want to do something worth it, and I want to do something worthy.
I want to be a stone that causes ripples in the pond, affecting things beyond myself, perhaps without ever knowing that it was done, but above all, happy to be doing what I'm doing, even when I feel like I'm failing to achieve my goals.
A good friend once told me that the path of progress may not be easy to walk, and it may seem as if you are not making headway up the mountain... but you should instead notice that you have not yielded backwards even one single inch...
Tomorrow... is one giant step up that mountain.
I feel like our election of the best man for the job, regardless of his skin color, is the beginning of the delivery on the promise of America. I have always believed in my country, have always been proud of the ideals that we strive for, even when I am disappointed in our ability to achieve those ideals.
And I wanted to help. I wanted to be a part of the solution, and I wanted to lend my arms, my head, and above all, my heart, to that ideal. I wanted to know, at the end of my career, that I did something worthy with my time - something which helped more than me, more than my child, more than my heirs.
I want to believe that there are answers to our problems - poverty, inequality, racism, and the whole host of other seemingly intractable problems we face together. I know there may not be total solutions, and that I might have to accept partial solutions, or even barely adequate solutions... but I want to do something hard. I want to do something worth it, and I want to do something worthy.
I want to be a stone that causes ripples in the pond, affecting things beyond myself, perhaps without ever knowing that it was done, but above all, happy to be doing what I'm doing, even when I feel like I'm failing to achieve my goals.
A good friend once told me that the path of progress may not be easy to walk, and it may seem as if you are not making headway up the mountain... but you should instead notice that you have not yielded backwards even one single inch...
Tomorrow... is one giant step up that mountain.