I returned home today from the great state of Pennsylvania where I was privileged to spend four days with the incredible army of volunteers working to elect Barack Obama as our next President. Over 57,000 out-of-state volunteers showed up in Pennsylvania to walk the streets, work the telephones and man the polling stations. It was truly amazing! What I have taken away from this experience once again reinforces my deep and abiding belief that our life experiences have gifts for us that can, if we are willing to identify and absorb them, transform our lives forever. It was not only the four days in Allentown but the entire two years of Barack’s campaign that has proven to be such a powerful impact on our country and the world at large.
First off I learned the lesson of non-reactive behavior, of taking the high road. So often when we feel we are being attacked or when our feelings get hurt, we immediatly react and do and say things that we ultimately regret. How many times was Barack Obama viciously attacked during this campaign? His resolve to stay the course of taking the high road, to be patient and to control his emotions is a lesson for all of us. We have the choice to react without thinking or to take the high road. If Obama can do it under such heavy barrage, we certainly can learn to stop, think and choose how we will handle a situation.
Obama trusted his gut instincts. He refused to change course, even when his staff and fellow Democrats asked him to hit back harder against the Republican swift boat tactics. His ability to trust himself and not succumb to outside pressure is why he is now the President-Elect of the United States
Obama recognized the power of one. I saw it in the streets of Allenown. So often, we assume that one person cannot make a difference but the Obama campaign proved that assumption dead wrong. This campaign brought millions of people together, people from every walk of life. The ground game was a one-on-one strategy: the power of millions of ‘ones’ coming together to create a tidal wave of power. Never ever think that your efforts don’t matter or that you cannot effect change.
Yes we can is a mantra for all of us. Who could imagine that a state politician who only four years ago was an unknown entity could now be headed for the White House? To believe that you could defeat a politican as powerful and savvy as Hilary Clinton? The sheer power of his will and the will of the people behind him has proven to me once and for all that one’s perspective and attitude can alter reality.
Putting out an extraordinary yielded an extraordiinary result. His entire life story was about effort resulting in amazing results. A multi-racial child, raised without the presnce of his Mother and Father, attends Harvard, becomes the first African-American to head the Harvard Law Review, heads to Illinois and becomes a State senator and then the state’s representative to the United States Senate. The hard work and enormous effort he put out resulted in what you see today.
In his life, Obama’ refused to take on the victim mentality and I believe that is why he was able to stand before the country not as a black man but as a man. Not a red state or blue state but a nation. His ability to forge the coalitions that propelled him into the Presidency was his insistence that we are far more alike than we are different. We are all human beings with the same yearnings and concerns. If that message were translated on a global level, imagine the repercussions? Israelis and Arabs, Sunnis and Shites, the tribes of Africa. To quote John lennon: Imagine all the people living in peace.
There is the powerful matter of hope versus fear. There were and are people out there who remained fearful of change and of someone different from them or their neighbors. The negative ads were based upon the knowledge that fear is a great motivator. Yet hope won out over fear. I was poll watching in Pennsylvania and I saw the hope in the faces of people from every walk of life as they headed into the voting booths. If we let fear run us, it is virtually impossible to move forward in life. Fear paralyzes us but hope inspires us to believe that life will work out in our best interests.
These are the gifts I recieved from the Obama campaign. I have great hope and faith that our country will trurn around. The impressive, positive reaction around the world with his win has already improved our standing in the world. It will not be easy, especially given our current situations and the problems that we face. Nonetheless, if Barack Obama remains rooted in his inner wisdom and instincts, as we all should, then all will be well.
Tags: abiding belief, assumption, barack obama, barrage, belief that, emotions, feelings, fellow democrats, ground game, gut instincts, home today, life experiences, polling stations, president elect, reactive behavior, resolve, state of pennsylvania, state volunteers, swift boat, telephones