When the going gets rough, a pep talk from former president Barack Obama may come in handy.
A day after president Donald Trump's downcast speech on terrorism and political adversaries during the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA), Obama discussed the power of optimism at the inaugural Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Goalkeepers" event.
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"Your response has to be to reject cynicism and reject pessimism and push forward, with a certain infectious and relentless optimism," he says. "Not blind optimism, not one that ignores the scale and scope of our challenges, but that hard-earned optimism, that's rooted in the stories of very real progress that have occurred throughout human history."
"We have to reject the notion that we're suddenly gripped by forces that we cannot control," Obama says. "We've got to embrace the longer and more optimistic view of history and the part that we play in it." But how can anyone be optimistic under those conditions, you may ask? Obama wants you to consider this: "By just about every measure, America is better — and the world is better — than it was 50 years ago, 30 years ago or even 10 years ago."
"I know that statement doesn't jibe with the steady stream of bad news and cynicism that we're fed through television and Twitter," Obama says.
"Each new generation stands on the successes of the previous generation," he says, bending "that arc of history in the direction of more freedom and more opportunity and more justice."
"I have great faith in you," he says, "and I'm certain that if you keep pushing forward, then America and the world are going to be just fine."
Look I know this is supposed to make us feel better, and it is SO nice to hear such optimism again, but really all it is doing is making me miss our former President more than ever.
However of course he is right, we desperately need to maintain a positive outlook and work for the kind of progress that his administration worked so hard to achieve.
So I am going to do my part, and keep pushing those progressive values in the hope that all of this will eventually blow over and we will once again get back on the right track to a better tomorrow.
You know what, I guess I DO feel better.
Source http://ift.tt/2xr3Okd
