As I watched the Presidential Inauguration this morning, I was encouraged and challenged by the words of our new President, that those who have gone before us, the ones who have shaped and brought our nation to where it is today, are, “the risk-takers, the doers, the maker of things…who have carried us up the long rugged pass toward prosperity and freedom.” It is the men and women of our great country, the farmers, the workers, the people of our cities and towns, that have made this nation great.
We have lived, breathed and grown up on the promise that we have been given, “the God given promise that all our equal, all our free and all deserve the chance to purse their full measure of happiness.” Hack-A-Life is about finding ways to make your life better, to make choices and decisions that give you the opportunity to pursue your measure of happiness and to better our world through choices and decisions. These decisions and choices that we make are not without risk. But as President Obama has said, “the risk-takers, the doers, the maker of things…who have carried us up the long rugged pass toward prosperity and freedom”.
A willingness to take a risk, to put faith in the goodness of people and to be ‘the maker of things’, ones that spur on towards improving our world will be the trademark of this nation. We will ‘outlast’ and outwork other nations, we will adapt and change, we will improve and invent, overcome and thrive.
Our commitment as a nation to make wise choices in our lifestyles, with our money, with our time and in our families will be the standard by which this next phase of our nation will be determined. But if we aspire to change, if we hope for progress, we must look for, “a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves….it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all”. What will be the legacy, not only of President Obama, but of this great nation?