As time goes on, it’s much harder to maintain that level of passion and feeling that comes with encountering greatness. I try to keep the fire burning but I feel it’s not in me. So then what?
The only solution I can think of is to put my head down and work on my 2010 goals, or as Chris Brogan says, my 3 words for the year. So far I’ve come up with Action, Greatness and Breakthrough. Leave a little room for small, unexpected miracles, which always help.
So that’s it…? Just keep working?
Something I found comforting yesterday was reading about the Obama’s last evening in Hawaii:
At the zoo, reporters asked the Obamas if they were ready to return to Washington. They all responded, “No!”
Michelle Obama then joked, “Let’s stay. We’ll all stay. Are we all in? I’m trying to mount a coup.”
Which makes me wonder: maybe, deep inside, they just want to live the life I already have! Go figure. Of course I feel so dissatisfied with my simple life and would love to go out and save the world like him.
But then again, I have something so valuable that many do not. I have the freedom, time and availability to be a present father. I’m close by and I am close to my family.
So it’s not the pomp and circumstance I’m interested in, but the freedom to preserve and protect freedom for others. TO create environments where love, sustenance and life can grow and thrive.
Freedom means everything to me. Obama says in The Audacity of Hope the underlying philosophy behind his politics is empathy. The trick is to tie the two together: How to freedom and empathy relate in a progressive Democracy?