Hope

This post has no structure, I am going to say whatever I feel like at the moment.


Now i'll be very truthful, I rarely follow politics and I am not someone who cares much for politicians. But I feel today is a day that has inspired me.

I just watched Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention, and I saw, after filtering through the typical idiot comments found on youtube, a comment that I thought rang so very true.

"It is much more difficult to be for something, than against something"

I think this line exemplifies what Barack Obama is doing for this country.

Barack Obama is FOR hope. He is FOR ideals. He is FOR opportunity and unity and coherent strength among our people. And rather than joining the masses who are so quick to blame others for troubles, instead he is inspiring the people to do something about it.

I don't know what everyone else feels when they watched Obama's inaugural speech today, but i'll tell you what it made me feel. It made me hold back tears. It sent chills down my spine. It made me sit a little bit straighter. And it made me want to be a better person. Isn't that what you want in a leader? Someone who can inspire, tell a story, elicit emotion, and force action simply by talking! Getting people to do things simply by the spoken word. I find it amazing that there are such inspirational people in the world. Just thinking about how much he has inspired me makes me want to be like him. Not because he's famous or because he is in a powerful position. It's because I wish to inspire like he does.

Granted, I'll never be in a position to touch and inspire the billions of people that he does around the world. But inspiration, being a role model, has never been about the number of people you touch. It's about the WAY you change them for the better. It's just like that one quote, "To the world, you may just be one person, but to one person you may be the world". Everyone has to start somewhere, and for someone like me, affecting one person may be the start that I need to take as well.

What Obama will do as president will be great, but that's not what interests me about him. It's what he's already done on his path to being president that does. The way he single handedly unified a nation, because he gave a reason for people to believe in him. He stuck to his guns and his ideals, and people really understand that he is genuine about what he says and what he does, and in a world full of corrupt and deceitful people, it's refreshing to find someone at the top of the world, who got there the way he did.

I was thinking, if they had hidden John McCain and Barack Obama behind curtains so you never knew what they looked like or what color they were throughout their entire campaigns, and you listened solely to what they said, would the people who voted for John McCain simply because he's white and Obama's black have voted differently?

Anyway, today is historical to me. Why? Because a black man is president? No, i don't care what color he is. It's historical to me because a great man is president. Especially in our country, as of now, in order to fill a position that is not considered normal for people of a certain race/sex/faith, I believe that a person has to be transcendent to overcome that. I hope that one day, people will understand this, and that people will look at Obama and not think of him as a black man, but as a great man.

I honestly and truly believe, as Obama said, that the differences among the people of our country is our STRENGTH, not our weakness. We should not allow ourselves to be pigeonholed by single trains of thought, but rather we have many different alternatives, which gives us a right to make an educated choice for ourselves. I've always thought that this was the right way, but I can't say I've always practiced it. Coming to Temple has given me an opportunity to meet people from all walks of life and every race you can imagine, from my classmates to the patients, people on competely different ends of the spectrum. But what you realize when you spend time with these wonderful people, is that when you really get to know them, you look past the differences. You don't even notice it anymore. You don't categorize them based on their race or upbringing, but rather on the strength of their character and the inherent meaning behind their beliefs. You understand that good-spirited people exist everywhere, and it inspires me everyday to have friends who are so good-hearted, and are much better people than I am. It becomes a goal for me to be like them one day. They are my peers, but they are also my role models.

To finish my unorganized rant, I'll leave with these thoughts.

Have the courage to stand for your convictions. You are all role models, whether you want to be or not. Be the inspiration for somebody else, it has much more far reaching consequences than you can imagine.