I just listened to Obama's Wesleyan address again. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out.
Below are some of his words that were inspiring to me. I hope they are to you too.
He spoke of Service to One's Country.
I was born the year John F. Kennedy called a generation of Americans to ask their country what they could do. I came of age at a time they were did it. They were the Peace Corps Volunteers... Those who watched the Civil Rights Movement unfold on their television sets... who knew it was probably smarter and safer to stay home but decided to... take those freedom rides down south and still decided to march and because they did, they changed the world.
You are about to enter a world that makes it easier to get caught up in the notion that there are actually two different stories at work in our lives. The first is the story of our everyday cares and concerns... The second is the story of what happens in our country. What happens in a wider world...
It is a story that sometimes can seem separate and distant from our own. A destiny to be shaped by forces beyond our control. And yet the history of this nation tells us that isn't so. It tells us that we are a people whose destiny has never been written for us but by us. By generations young and old who have always believed their story and the American Story are not separate but shared...
There were many times where I wasn't sure where I was going or what I was going to do w/my life... I began to notice a world beyond myself... I was possessed w/this crazy idea that I was going to work at a grassroots level to bring about change...It wasn't easy but eventually, we made progress...
I also began to realize that I wasn't just helping other people. Through service, I found a community that embraced me, citizenship that was meaningful, the direction that I had been seeking. Through service, I discovered how my own improbable story fit in to the larger story of America.
Now each of you will have the chance to make your own discovery in the years to come... You won't have to take it. There's no community service requirement in the outside world. No one's forcing you to care. You can take your diploma... and chase after the big house and the nice suits and the other things that our money culture says you should buy. You can chose to narrow your concerns and live life in a way that tries to keep your story separate from America's. But I hope you don't.
Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate; although, I do believe you have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all those who helped you get to where you are today; although, I do believe you have that debt to pay. It's because you have an obligation to yourself.
Because, our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs betrays a poverty of ambition. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role that you will play in writing the next great chapter in the American Story.
There are so many ways to serve and so much that needs to be done... I ask you to seek these opportunities... because the future of this country... depends on it.
At a time when our security and our moral standing depends on winning the hearts and minds in the forgotten corridors of the world, we need more of you to serve abroad... Work side-by-side to take on the common challenges that confront all of humanity...
We need you to help lead a green revolution...
We need an army of you to become teachers and principals in schools that this nation can not afford to give up on...
We will need you...
We need more of you... to help rebuild... Volunteer in your own communities because there is more than enough work to go around... We need you to work for peace... We need you to work for opportunity... At a time of so much cynicism and so much doubt, we need you to make us believe again.
Believing that change is possible is not the same as being naive... Change will not come easily... It is hard to change attitudes...
Understand that should you take the path of service... Know that you will experience the occasional frustrations and the occasional failures. Even your successes will be marked by imperfections and unintended consequences... I hope you will remember during those times of doubt and frustration that there is nothing naive about your impulse to change the world. Because, all it takes is one act of service, one blow against injustice to send forth... that tiny ripple of hope. That's what changes the world, that one act...
He told a story of a man replied he'd chosen to volunteer for the Peace Corps because it was the first time someone had asked him to do something for his country. Barack said, I am asking you. If I should have the honor of serving this nation as president, I will be asking again and again in the coming years. Because, we may disagree... but I believe we that can be unified in service to a greater good.. .
We will face our share of cynics and doubters but we always have. He told a story of one man who told him, "You can't change the world and people won't appreciate you trying." He says, the man was wrong. He said, that man has not seen what I have seen...
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