It’s easy to get down on the world. To see the policy mistakes, the nattering about the things that don’t matter, and get caught in a heavy dark cloud of despair. But, as I sit with one son who dreams of playing in the NHL with a fall back plan of being a lawyer eating a burrito after practicing with another who wants to play on the PGA Tour with the fallback plan of being a mechanical engineer, I feel hope. When I hear from the students I teach, the colleagues I know and the entrepreneurs I have been lucky enough to learn from, there is no better country to dream a dream and try to achieve it. In my first 44 years, I lived the American dream from beginning to end. And in the next 47 (a psychic told me I make it to 91), I can reinvent myself and chase the dream all over again.
Today, I repost Bari Weiss’s tribute to America from July 4th. It’s worth the reminder that no matter how bad your day, your frustration and your disappointment, you have it better than every one else on earth.
Even with all the intrusions on our freedom that we regularly document here—intrusions from government, from tech, from the hall monitors of elite culture—we still know that we are the freest citizens of any country on Earth.
We are all familiar with the complaints and critiques of America. We lodge many of them ourselves. But there’s always still that fundamental truth: Every single person in this country is lucky. Not by a little—lucky by a lot
God bless America.
Maintaining that FREEDOM for our amazing youth cannot be understated. Great motivation here Mr Ramsenwood and Son.
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
Favorite lines from God Bless America (second stanza)