We Can Do This

We did something today – January 20, 2009.

In the United States of America, a Black man took the oath for the highest office in the land. So many millions of people thought that they would never see this day. Private hopes and a few attempts by African Americans in the past notwithstanding, most people just never thought this day would ever come to pass.

I believe that the real reason this has happened is because tens of millions of average people decided deep within their own convictions that not only did they want this to happen, they were going to do the work necessary to make it happen.

That is the way most difficult things are done.

We decide that we can do better.

And then, we do it.

We can do better by the millions of children across the globe who are suffering because of wars and conflict. We decide. We work. We make it happen.

It sounds simple, but it is not. Again, nothing worth doing ever is.

But if I made up my mind and you made up yours — and we joined together with others who were also resolute, we can certainly do anything.

When I look into Barack Obama’s face, I think about the millions of people he inspired to just work it out. He touched something deep within us, something that many of us had lost touch with long ago: hope in ourselves, and the knowledge that together, we are called to do something bigger than ourselves.

We can do this.