From the Corner of the Oval

by Beck Dorey-Stein

“We don’t have a lot of time,” POTUS says. “I know when you’re young it seems like it goes on forever. It turns out things are fragile. And yet, the thing that outlives each of us is what we do for somebody else, what difference did we make.

POTUS grabs my attention when he says the narrative of history is long, and “We just try to get our paragraph right.” Life is short and this world is big. Get your paragraph right.

Cynicism is fashionable these days. But I got to tell you, cynicism didn’t put a man on the moon. Cynicism did not create the opportunity for all our citizens to vote. Cynicism has never won a war, or cured a disease, or started a business, or fed young minds. I believe in optimism. I believe in hope…Don’t let the cynics get you down. Cynicism is a choice—and hope is a better choice.

David Foster Wallace wrote that freedom means “being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”