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I wanted to share some thoughts tonight as we are all in the throws of change.  I feel some resistance in my life right now.  From trying to break unhealthy habits to breaking unhealthy thoughts, my intuition knows what I need to do—but I’m finding the doing challenging.  It almost feels like a lack of motivation.  And I know it’s the letting go that is hard.  Increasing flexibility is hard.  I know I am still clinging to control.

The truth is that there is so much to let go of, I could pick anything and just stop and it would help.  I don’t even know why I’m trying to hold onto it all.  Perhaps it’s the known that is safe so I’m fighting for it.  I am open to the changes but I fear I’m following the wrong signs.  It’s the perfectionism that prevents me from being vulnerable.

Maybe this is something we can all relate to—I’m really struggling to release the mask I created but I’m acutely aware of the new mask I’m creating.  It’s this in between where I am still learning to settle.  I’m trying to find the next me.  Each mask is heavy with the expectations and dreams of others so I assume the responsibility of those dreams—rather than listening to my own. They aren’t my own.

I’ve missed the fundamental point that moving forward form here requires I lay down ALL masks.  And that can be said to anyone.  In order for real progress to be made, we can’t carry that burden.  To get through the resistance I must walk exposed, open, honest and vulnerable in who I am.  This is where I carry nothing else with me.  No shielding.

It’s authentic ownership of self and learning to dance with the flow of life.  I have to give up the illusion of control. There is nothing I can control except to direct my course.  I have to stop appearing how I think people want me to and live how I am meant to.  There is freedom in letting go of shame and there is freedom in knowing that your choices are yours to make.  I’ve spent a lifetime dancing to everyone’s drum but my own.

Glennon Doyle says quite simply, “we can do hard things.”  When we give up the pretense that we can’t do it, we ignite our lives.  Letting go is hard.  But I can do hard things—and all this resistance is just fear.  So maybe I (and we) just needed a reminder of that.

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Today I am grateful for finding center.  Over the last two days I’ve had the joy to speak with family and friends and to help direct me where I need to.  With the overwhelm and the uncertainty weighing heavy the last few weeks, it felt good to speak with people who bring you back.

Today I am grateful for doing the work.  There has been a lot going on in my life, personally and professionally, and I’ve allowed that to contribute to my overwhelm.  I woke up today and realized that it was enough.  It was enough complaining and telling myself that I didn’t know what to do.  It was time to take action.

Today I am grateful to prepare.  Things have been progressing but on hold at the same time.  We are looking at options for our family and making decisions about what we want to do, the type of life we want to have in the future.  In order for those things to happen, we need to do the work.  We know that it will take some time and we had been waiting to start.  We didn’t want to get our hopes up and lose on the opportunity we hope we have so we didn’t do much.  But today we had to make a choice.  Living in limbo wasn’t cutting it and it was causing more anxiety.  So we just began.  We began with clearing.  We are creating the way for the future to come in.

Today I am grateful to recognize my patterns.  I have been clinging so tightly to control.  I am so fearful of letting go.  I am fearful of not being prepared for any inevitability.  Being that fearful has taken me out of the present moment.  That is far too heavy a burden to carry.  I’ve been feeling so off lately, trying to find where I need to change, where I have gotten in my own way.  Recognizing the issue is the first step.

Today I am grateful for communication.  My husband and I got into an argument today and it could have been really heated.  After 19 years together, I saw my pattern and I paused.  I looked at how he was feeling in the situation and recognized where I had the opportunity to do something differently.

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“Anxiety is sort of the opposite of ego.  You’re so sure you’ll do everything wrong you’re afraid to do anything at all.  Often this, rather than laziness is the real reason you find it hard to get started” – Robert Pirsig.

We’ve all been feeling a little anxious lately.  The world is upheaval and so many still seem to be missing the point of the message: it is time to unify, forget about the system and remember our shared humanity.  Simply put: it is time to reprioritize.

That is where the quote above struck me.  There is so much I want to do but I’m not sure of my ability to see it through so I’ve sat by when I could be doing something.  Then I see how quickly things are changing and I get the fear of missing out—like I should have been doing more.  I know I’m also giving into distraction way too easily.  I’m not doing enough to remove those distractions.  At the same time I’m really emotional.

When emotions and distraction are involved we are not clear.  I certainly know that I’m not thinking at my peak right now.  That alone is enough to cause anxiety.  We are trying to make decisions quickly and from a place we have never been before.  There is no way to know what the outcome will be from the decisions we make today.

So many people are reacting on a hair trigger.  I actually get it because we are all so emotionally charged.  We feel the anger at the lack of support from this system we have created but we aren’t quite sure what the future will look like.  There are amazing things happening but there is still so much work to do.  There are laws being passed, there are community changes being made but we still face this pandemic.  This limbo we are in, where things are moving forward but not quite resolved, is incredibly trying.  But no matter what level of discomfort we are going through or what emotions we may have about it, the world needs this change.

So here is what I’m doing:

I’m giving in. I am accepting.  I am taking what is in front of me in this moment and I am going to work with it.  I will not make excuses for why things didn’t get done.

I’m giving up.  I am letting go of my idea of what I think should be happening right now.  I am redefining my goal about what the outcome needs to be.

I’m taking responsibility.  I am going to focus on what I need to and I am going to act within my power.  I am going to focus on my part and work on the things that I need to. If I want a certain outcome, I have to do the work.

I’m clearing.  I am getting rid of what no longer serves.  Everything from emotional baggage to physical clutter; from expectations of others to clothes that don’t fit.

I’m clarifying.  I am eliminating the distractions I’ve allowed to become habit and I am going to put my energy where it needs to be.  Marie Forleo says, “Clarity comes from engagement, not thought.”  So that is what is next: engaging.

I’m practicing.  I will try and try until I get where I am meant to be.  I won’t let one strike take me out of the game.  I will be grateful for what I know now and for what I learn tomorrow.  I will be grateful for the tools I have and for what I can make with them.

I’m still going.  I have learned that my comfort zone isn’t enough anymore.  Just when I think that the lesson is complete, there is more.  There is always more to do or learn.  That is true for all of us: Don’t stop where you think your limitations are.  Destroy those limitations and keep going.

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I was looking at some reports at work the other day and it astounded me that some of the numbers were incredibly close to pre Covid levels.  They were almost normal.  I started thinking about what our goals are at this stage.  So many people have been fighting and crying and trying to get back to “normal.”  I recall a mere 10 weeks ago talking about how we had such an amazing opportunity with this disease to shift things.  For a while it seemed like we were doing just that.  And now it seems like the cries of everyone who complained outweigh the need for change.

But the world works in funny ways and with the horrible events over memorial day, the world again is screaming for change.  What else could it possibly take for us to act on this message?  It is plain that we need to shift.  It is even more plain that collective action works.  So let’s do something FOR the collective.

When I saw those numbers at work, I started thinking that even in adversity we will fight for the status quo because the norm is the known—and that is safe.  No matter how atrocious or painful, the known is better than the unknown.  Even in adversity, the system moves on.  I have watched as a company meant to care for people has shifted practice to support the bottom line—and it has worked.  The system moves on for the benefit of the bottom line.  In spite of the chaos, the miscommunication, the pulling in different directions, we are still crying to make it how it was.

Rather than get angry or disappointed, I began to think that perhaps it simply is the natural order of things to evolve and devolve and then change again.  We change.  We like to think (with our perceived power) that we will never have to give up who we think we are. But real power comes from adaptability and that too is the natural order of things.

We have this image of how life will go, how we believe it is supposed to function.  I’ve always stopped imagining my life at a certain point—like I couldn’t see beyond a certain stage.  I wanted to avoid things that are inevitable and still scare me.  I fear the loss of my parents and my siblings and dying.  But it will happen. And I know that this is what is happening with the collective now: we are afraid of the death of what we know.

Learning to be present and stay in the moment is key.  We remember things from our past so vividly (at least I do) and it stays with us in so many ways.  In truth, in spite of all the challenges I had, I’ve had a very fortunate life.  I allowed myself to get swept up in what life was built for me rather than the creation of my own life.  I didn’t want to disappoint anyone so I went with what was given to me with no concept of making something on my own.  But now is the awakening.  I feel a sense of coming to my senses, a coming into my own.

This is the moment where we can all ask what we really want.  For me, I want to call the shots in my life.  That is the only way to make the life I want happen.  I’m not talking about grandeur and riches, I’m talking about not being weighed down by a system that doesn’t serve the collective any longer.

For me, now is the time to make something and provide for my family.  This phase of my life is about creation.  In spite of what appears to be falling apart, this is the opportunity to build.  Sometimes devastation is opportunity disguised as loss.  It’s a clearing.  Even the phoenix has to burn in order to rise from the ashes.

“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens” — Rumi

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Today I am grateful for the small splurges in life.  I went to the store with my son and found a pair of shorts for less than $5 so I bought them.  It was in that moment that I felt the most connected to myself in a long while.  A stupid pair of $5 shorts.  I asked myself if I wanted them, I did, so I acted.  I’m not saying I needed to be materialistic to connect to myself, but I was able to recognize what I wanted in the moment and to go for it.  With everything that is going on right now, we need to learn to connect with our inner voice.

Today I am grateful to shift roles in my family.  My parents have recently suffered a loss of a pet and they’ve been struggling with their choice.  One of my sisters and I have been talking with them and we were able to help them shift to a place of acceptance.  The missed the companionship of their pet (who was 18 years old) and wanted to bring that back.  I went with them to the shelter and they adopted an 8 year old partially blind cat.  It kept me centered in the moment to help them through that.

Today I am grateful to understand the dynamics of my family a little more.  To piggy back on helping my parents and my shifting relationship with them, I spent some time with my sister this weekend as it was my niece’s birthday.  She talked to me about some of her long-held feelings about my relationship with my parents and we had a dialogue about it.  It’s those conversations where you realize you’re more similar than you are different, especially as you’re cut from the same cloth.  It also woke me up to the fact that some of the feelings I thought we had long ago resolved were still pressing for her.

Today I am grateful to be learning more about my next steps and my place in the world.  I feel my work evolving, my opinions quieting, and my need for facts changing.  I find my tone changing as well and that is so necessary right now.  Now is all about reflection and doing the work.

Today I am grateful to pay more attention to what needs to be done on my side of the court as it relates to my personal life, my public life, and my professional life.  I’ve been struggling with who I am.  The conversation with my sister actually brought a lot of that up for me because I spent so much time trying to make other people happy that I never found myself.  In doing that, I never formed a solid foundation for who I am.  Right now, I have feelings that make my stance very clear and I no longer feel the need to perform.  I have struggles and I am ok admitting to them because that ownership takes you to healing.

Today I am grateful to open up.  I took some time to prep for the week and to clean but we also spent a lot of time together as a family.  I feel like I opened up to a state of allowing.  At the beginning of the week I felt myself being pulled by the current and I was fighting it—but today I went with it.  And no matter how many times that happens to me, I am always amazed at the reminder of how well things go when you are in a state of flow.  No control.  Just going with it.

Today I am grateful for reality checks.  There is a lot of work I need to do to get to where I want to be.  While outside forces may have contributed to me not getting there sooner, I can no longer hide behind the fact that I need to take a stand and to do the work.  I’ve managed to tow the line that allowed me to simultaneously be productive while not getting there.  Now it has been made very clear that in order to get where I want to be, it can’t be a half-hearted effort—I need to be all in.  There is only one shot at this and now is the time.  It’s ok to trust the sign when it comes: take the leap.

Today I am grateful for the annoyances I feel.  They mean there is opportunity for me to make changes.  They mean there is opportunity for me to let go more and to get in flow.  And honestly, to have annoyances means that there is privilege.  I am alive and I have choices that I can do something with.  This is something I don’t take for granted any longer.  There is no place for that.  We all have to use our talents, our gifts for what we are meant to do.  That is our responsibility.  To recognize that is a gift.

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I’m witnessing the pain of this country right now.  I’m witnessing fear responses.  I’m witnessing anger.  I’m witnessing grief.  I’m witnessing desperation.  And through all of that, I’m witnessing hope. The hope still exists that this is the opportunity for this country to make a necessary shift in how we live and treat people.

The tragic events over the last week have culminated in the beauty and sadness of communities simultaneously coming together and being destroyed.  The entire world is like that right now.  We are on the precipice of something we all feel but can’t yet articulate.  We know there is change in the air yet we are afraid of it.  And we know the change is necessary but we have no idea what comes next.

All we can do right now is offer our support.  To actively support finding a solution.  Regardless of whether or not the looting and riots across America are right, that is not our call.  The action, no matter right or wrong, is the result of very real issues we have perpetuated for generations.  The actions we are seeing are the cry of those who haven’t been heard until now.  Your demand for the silence of those in the face of oppression is the continuation of the same issue.  Your demand for their compliance is suggesting that you have the authority to dictate how people behave.  And telling people how to behave is suggesting that you rank above others.

It is time we realized that we have no say in how people behave beyond common courtesies.  In this day and age this conversation should have long be squelched.  The question of worth as determined by race, gender, orientation or anything else should no longer exist.  The conversation about who can do what with their voice is establishing the same classist divide that we are supposed to be fighting against.  It is not for another human to tell someone what to do with their feelings.  It is not for another human to dictate what they do with their grief, rage, or fear.  And it is not for another human to use their fear as an excuse to subjugate another people.

The issue common across all of these areas is power.  The real drive is power and the urge to exercise that power over people.  If we would stop long enough to realize that the system we still abide by keeps us in this divide of those with perceived authority and those without, then maybe we would see where the real issue is—with the system.  If we stopped fighting long enough to support each other and make sure we all could thrive and have a voice, then maybe we could tackle the issue and create a system that worked for all of us.

We are living in fear of each other and violently taking it out on each other as a means to cope with the bars we have allowed to cage us.  The reality is there are no bars.  What we have done can be undone but that will not work unless we do it together with a common goal.  Truthfully, I don’t profess to have the answer.  I simply have a vision and my vision is a world where this painful reality is a memory.  A world where my son can go out and play and not worry about catching disease.  A world where we are all allowed to thrive and we don’t allow how much paper someone has hold power over us.  A world where we have moved beyond the drive for power and have learned to live in love.

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Today I am grateful for an abundance of love.  Things have been changing so rapidly in my personal life that, as exciting as everything is, it has been easy to get swept up in momentum rather than the moment.  I was blessed to spend time with my parents today and to witness both their excitement and their vulnerability as we talked about the future.  Time moves quickly and I don’t take a moment for granted.  Love is about being in those moments with people and just holding them as they are.

Today I am grateful for alignment.  Today was one of those rare days where everything felt like it happened just as it was meant to.  The timing was right, everything was aligned, and the day just flowed.  It was truly one of those laid back easy days even though there were a million things I had to accomplish.

Today I am grateful for being alive in this day and age.  There are so many insane things happening in this world, things many of us thought we would never see, and to be here in this time, feeling it all means that I am part of something that will sprout roots for generations.  I feel so grateful to have the chance to share my message and to be a part of this revolution.  I will always regret the events that made this revolution necessary, but I am beyond grateful to be part of the solution.

Today I am grateful to witness things I have never experienced before.  Last night my husband, son, and I were able to see DragonX and the International Space Station cross the sky over our place.  On a whim I had been looking at an article and it mentioned that we’d be able to see it.  We went out and waited and sure enough, after a few minutes of looking at the stars and planets, we saw the smooth flight of DragonX quickly followed by the ISS.  What an incredibly cool moment!

Today I am grateful for good junk food.  I took my son on a walk/bike ride through our neighborhood and ran into some friends.  They mentioned a type of sandwich we all love so we made the quick decision that is what we were going to have for dinner.  It was a great treat to get some food and eat outside with the clear blue sky, listening to music, and taking a short drive.

Today I am grateful to step into the woman I am meant to become.  This is a time of transition.  Roles are shifting as my parents age, as my son is growing, as I’m developing my skills in a new way.  Perhaps this is really about acceptance.  When we finally enter a state of flow, life moves.  And that is the point: life moves no matter what so it’s easier to go with it than fight against it.

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This entire year has felt like a series of impossibilities, things we never thought we would see.  At times it felt like a cosmic joke as the events that unfolded seemed beyond any reality we could imagine.  The truth is that, while this year has shown us things we never thought we would see, it is really exposing all things we could no longer ignore.  This is the year we are being called to action.  Because when things need to change, it isn’t enough to speak of them—it is necessary to move forward into the territory of the unknown.  We can only ignore what we need to do for so long until outside sources put enough pressure on us to incite movement.

As a whole we have witnessed the mishandling of a global pandemic.  As things start to reopen due to public insistence, we will soon face the reality that the decision to open this soon was also not the right choice.  I have seen calls for kindness and tolerance of people who fall on different sides of the coin in this matter.  I have seen people boldly declaring “you do you and I’ll do me” in reference to what people are going to choose to partake in.  I have seen people trying to push a comparison between afraid and unafraid when it comes to what people are comfortable doing with the state reopening.

The truth is I have never witnessed such childish behavior from adults.  It’s beyond childish—it’s selfish, entitled, and dangerous.  It is the epitome of handing a toddler a butcher knife.  It brings out a level of frustration in me that feels like it could torch the world.

When it comes to the matter of disease there are some very simple facts.  First, the nature of any disease can and does change quickly.  That can either be for the positive or negative meaning, it proves to be either more or less dangerous than we thought.  When it comes to Covid, it is simply too early to make a clear distinction about where it falls on that scale.  YES we know more about it than we did 3 months ago.  But do we know enough about it to determine how it is going to evolve?  Do we know enough to establish a SAFE and effective vaccine? NO.  Second, when we don’t know those things with at least 90% certainty, we are not prepared enough to move into the next phase of ANYTHING.  People are touting that this disease has a 90% survival rate with 10% mortality, which may be true.  But the regular mortality rate for most cases in hospitals is from 1% to 3%.  This is a significant increase and just because you haven’t been affected by the illness, a large majority have been and it isn’t ok to ignore what others are going through.

Third, the real reason people have been so determined to get life “back to normal” has nothing to do with their fear of being controlled.  It has to do with the fact that during one of the biggest crises this generation has ever seen globally, one of the most financially strong countries in the world left its citizens to fend for themselves.  The powers that be supported business over its people forgetting that without people, business doesn’t exist.  We were told to stay home while simultaneously being expected to pay our bills.  People lost their jobs because companies had to close.  We were told to not go to the store but places couldn’t even keep toilet paper on the shelves.  We. Had. To. Fight. For. Toilet. Paper.  We were not cared for at the highest level.  I will be the first to admit there was no manual on handling a pandemic, but I sure as hell know that we need to feel safe in order to try something new.  We needed to know that we were safe. If this is really about getting back to normal, shame on you.  Because normal wasn’t working for everyone and until it does, normal isn’t good enough.  Put on your adult underwear and deal with the fact that things change.

Fourth, this isn’t going to end until we start thinking outside of the box.  There are just too many unknowns and that means that what we think we know may not apply here.  This may be a time when rushing forward isn’t the answer.  This may be a time of figuring it out.  I’m not suggesting we wait forever.  But I am suggesting that we do a better job of acclimating to reality and that the powers that be let go of their love of money in favor of love of humanity.  This simply means doing the right thing.  Keep people healthy and do whatever it takes to do that.  This isn’t a civil rights issue that needed to be overturned by courts—this is a public health issue that requires people to do as they are told.

There are additional public issues happening now. I feel compelled to address the George Floyd atrocity.  For those of you focused on the riots, the way people are protesting, I am so unbelievably sad for you.  You are completely missing the point.  You are missing the fact that we have left an entire community of people on the outside and said their pain is wrong.  The hurt of the African-American community spans generations and the fact that these atrocities are still occurring means that this is a hurt that exists.  It is real, it is tangible, and it is happening.  If you’re focused on the riots, you’re oblivious to the human suffering that is happening today at the hands of people we entrust with our safety.  You’re also incredibly privileged to be able to live your life without those fears or that pain.  If you can’t get to that level of compassion and understanding, then you have nothing to contribute to the conversation but more hurt.

With all of that being said on both issues, the bottom line is there is a lot of fear and hurt right now.  Fear manifests as anger.  So instead of anger, I want to share this.  I am profoundly grateful for everything that is happening right now.  I am grateful for leadership that continues to ignore real issues and to gaslight and that mismanages real public issues. I am grateful because all of this unrest is leading to action from the people.  I am grateful that the voices of the few now outweigh the voices of the rich.  I am grateful that we are finally in a situation where we know that there are things occurring that can no longer be ignored.  And I pray that as things continue to evolve, we continue to raise our voices for health, safety, and equality.  This world is crying in so many ways and we need to hear it.  We need to hear the words and heed them.  Our actions impact each other no matter how isolated we feel we are.

Regardless of how you feel about either situation discussed, I encourage you to question and go deeper.  I encourage you to try and see things differently.  I encourage you to hear all sides. I encourage you to entertain new ideas about where you stand.  I encourage you to act in ways that benefit us all.

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I’m grateful to rely on myself.  I’m grateful to trust in my ability to create the life I want for my family, for myself.  I’m grateful to take accountability for my needs and to admit what I need to do to get where I want to go. We are in the midst of a ton of changes in my house and for the first time, I feel like I have taken full accountability for where we are going.

I’m grateful to align with my authentic self. I’m grateful to give what I an and to understand what it means to give.  I’m grateful to find options to publish my work.  I used to fear giving, feeling like it would mean there is less for me because I had been taken advantage of in some painful ways previously.  Taking the chance to offer support has shown me how giving amplifies our own lives.

I’m grateful to have so much love in my life.  I am grateful to understand what that blessing means.  My kid, my husband, my animals, my entire family—there is so much joy in unconditional love.  Joy and security.

I am grateful for my health and the opportunity to choose what is important to me without guilt.  I am grateful to enjoy my life no matter what.  I used to believe that things had to look a certain way in my life in order to be of value or that they had to occur at a certain time, all things going exactly right in order for me to celebrate them.  With the current state of things, I’m seeing how there is so much beauty in life and it occurs all the time.

I am grateful to see the peace in the present moment and relax into it—to feel safe in the moment.  My mind easily jumps from fear to regret as I swing between anxiety about the future and depression.  Seeing how little control we have over the circumstances of the world allows me to appreciate the things I have accomplished and built.  There is something to be happy with in every moment.

I am grateful to share my knowledge and insight with those who ask for it.  I have been told that I am good at offering support.  That was definitely one of the ways I had been taken advantage of previously because I would end up doing the work for people.  But as time has gone on, I’ve learned to help people get on their feet and to steer them in the right direction—and I really love doing that.

I am grateful to be in a position where I’m content regardless of the direction things go.  With that, I am grateful to understand what it means to be in flow with life.  This is the hardest one for me.  But I have learned a lot over the last two months.  It has been intense for me because things have changed rapidly but that has given me the chance to be honest about where I’m at and to make decisions based on instinct.  And getting in touch with that again is a game changer.

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Today I am grateful to be surrounded by strong women.  I was able to speak with my mother and sisters today in celebration of Mother’s Day.  We had a beautiful, intense conversation and it really felt cathartic.  It was nice to celebrate together virtually.

Today I am grateful to simply feel validated in what I am feeling.  The emotions I have been experiencing as of late have been overwhelming and speaking with my sisters today helped.  It was a release to hear that I am not alone in what I am feeling and a relief to hear that no one knows what they are doing now.  I understand logically that most people will experience things differently at this time, but to HEAR that others are feeling the same thing without having to explain myself felt calming.

Today I am grateful to be able to reach out to new contacts for help.  That is not something I would normally do.  I’m typically the person who deals with the heavy lifting on my own, but I haven’t been able to do that lately.  I took a chance and reached out to a woman I just met a few weeks ago and she was able to give me some advice and some solace about where I’m at.

Today I’m grateful to understand that live is always evolving.  Again, we are all logically aware of this but as time goes on, it is easy to forget it practically.  It is easy to forget what change feels like and what it feels like to have to participate in something we may not have chosen.  The old adage, “We plan, God laughs,” seems highly applicable right now.  This saying is true during the most usual of circumstances.  Throw in the circumstances we are seeing today with this pandemic and there is no way to make a plan.  There is no way to treat this situation as normal.  We can not respond to the unknown in the known ways.

Today I am grateful for the little things that keep my feet on the ground.  I made French toast this morning.  I was constantly interrupted by my son during the family conference—reminding me that we are all ok and sometimes just need to get out of our heads.  I have my health.  I have support.  I know love.

Today I am grateful for dreams.  As I mentioned in the evolving paragraph, we have no way to know how to plan for what may be coming right now because we don’t know what is coming.  But I am so grateful to be able to have fun and imagine the possibilities that are out there.  It gives me some hope to think that we can change things.

Today I am grateful to have things to remain hopeful for—we all have things to remain hopeful for.  I hope for a positive future.  I hope for healing, emotionally and physically.  I hope for love and joy.  I hope for a return to self.  I hope for a return to personal accountability for everyone.  I hope for a time when people will remember the value of work and of not simply getting their way.  I hope for a time when we remember the value of people again.  I hope for a time of common goals and shared responsibility.  I hope for a time when we understand the value of serving our individual purpose and release the drive for homogeny.  I want us to explore and unleash all the colors of the world.