The true test of the American ideal is whether we?re able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them. Whether chance of birth or circumstance decides life?s big winners and losers, or whether we build a community where, at the very least, everyone has a chance to work hard, get ahead, and reach their dreams.
… You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own. Not because you have a debt to those who helped you get here, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate than you, although I do think you do have that obligation. It?s primarily because you have an obligation to yourself. Because individual salvation has always depended on collective salvation. Because it?s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.? — Senator Barack Obama, Knox College Commencement 2005
Amen. and thanks for the reminder out there.