Inspiration

Well this has been an eventful week with lots to reflect upon. First of all (and most importantly), we have a new president! I can proudly say that I saw Obama exactly 21 hours before he became President-elect along with 100,000 other Americans (and Rachel) at Obama’s last campaign rally in Manassas, Virginia. It was a spontaneous and irrational decision to go all the way to Manassas because I was putting off an enormous amount of homework and wasn’t even sure how I would get a ride back to AU after the rally. But how could I possibly justify missing this once-in-a-lifetime experience?! I couldn’t! The same reasoning came across my mind on election night when we were debating whether or not to storm the White House with thousands of other crazy Washingtonians. In fifty years I won’t remember that I was exhausted from staying up all night finishing my homework and from getting up early to go to a soup kitchen… I will remember that I had the most amazing two nights of my life. I was moved to tears on Monday night when I heard Obama speak, about 20 feet away from me, about the power of one person’s voice. And on the following night, tears were brought to my eyes again the moment that I realized our country had elected an African American as our President, and consequently as the most powerful man in the world. We have come full circle from slavery and even though racism still exists in our country, this is a huge step to overcoming racial divides. Not only am I hopeful for the future regarding our government, but I am also hopeful for the social equality that our country is clearly striving for. It is truly inspiring and I will surely share the events of the past week with the future generations of our country. I have never been this proud.

On a slightly different note, but still an inspiring one, I really enjoyed our visit to Bread for the City. The people who work there are extremely driven to help others and I admire them so much; these people live with compassion. It goes to show all of us that there is so much that we can do to help others. Besides the fact that I respected the employees of Bread for the City, I’m eager to learn more about the intricacies of poverty this week because it seems like there is a lot going on under the surface. Just from this visit I got the impression that there are social, government, and economical issues that seem to play a huge role in poverty. Hopefully my group can effectively address these issues and more on Friday in class!

Speaking of class, I thought this week’s group did an interesting simulation. Of course we liked it because of the candy, but it really got me thinking about prosperity and wealth. What would I give for a Kit-Kat versus a caramel? What methods did I employ to go about getting candy? I thought the most effective way for everyone to get what they wanted was to get in groups according to what candy you wanted and everyone just give their different colored chips to the groups who wanted each type of candy. More people would get more candy that way. Whether we failed at organizing this system or certain people only had their own interests in mind, that idea just didn’t work. To me, sharing and pooling our resources for the best interest of everybody seemed like a great idea but as we saw in this simulation and as we see in the real world, communistic ideas never run as smoothly as intended. In theory, communist ideology of sharing prosperity is great but it doesn’t play out like that in reality. However, I was content with sharing my Twizzler candy wealth with Andrew and Perry. And I was fully satisfied with my own candy intake by the end of class even though I did not win a full-size candy bar. While I don't deny that I have my own self-interest, I know that I am driven to share. It's in my nature to strive for equality and fairness; that is what inspires me above anything else. I guess that makes me a pinko!