Wishing Is Not So

I wish upon a star that…  You recall saying this when you were a kid. There was magic in that moment, but it didn’t take long to learn that magic wasn’t real. Neither was wishing on a star.

What model we set for ourselves to follow is a good start. The outcome is yet to be. Much work must be done before we can expect outcomes. Any outcomes. Certainly not The Outcome we hope for.

Life may be a journey, but outcomes are the objectives we aim for. Having no aim makes life just a trip, endless and pointless. The trip, the journey, life itself, takes on meaning when we find the model we wish to be. Commitment and energy – hard work – makes it happen. Investment in time and ideas make it happen. Dedication to values makes it happen. If it is only for you - the self - the celebration is short-lived. It may be valuable to you, but often not to anyone else. That alone should tell you something.

We find value in community, relations with others. We achieve great things through sharing the load. We are the sum of our parts, not the sole of our part.

America has achieved greatness at times through the efforts of many, through unity, through oneness of purpose. Freedom. Justice. Education. Faith. Whatever it was for you and the others of history, it made a difference. We survived: the great depression, smallpox, polio, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the skirmishes in the Middle East. The list goes on. We invented a way through the troubles each and every time. We joined with others to manage the challenges. We survived. We prospered.

Now, imagine the outcomes of all those troubles if we did not stand together.

That is the challenge today. We the People is a core value in America. We argue among ourselves to the detriment of that unity. We raise the cost and losses from disunity. We see it every day in the US Congress and Senate. We see it in our political parties.

Disunity blocks collaboration and community. In that reality we are destroying ourselves, our very futures.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should pull us together. We need to stand together to do what is right in all of our challenges in life. It is not me against the world. Or you. It is us. Together we can make the best things happen.

All we have to do is believe in each other. The good things. not the bad. Together imagine what we all want. Then make it happen.

There is no star to make that happen.

March 4, 2022

 

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