Steve, great response. I understand your position completely. Here is mine.
I do agree that changes take time to accomplish. In fact, I see people working to contribute toward those changes day by day all the time, you being one of many examples in FIRST, as well as many other individuals in this world.
However, I would argue that FIRST came into existence because Dean had a vision in his head. I would argue that in order to build up these Tsunami, it takes someone with big ideas and big visions, someone to imagine the impossible, to capture the imagination of the rest of us. It is through these ideas that people can rally together and work toward one goal. Otherwise, if all we can imagine is one drop at a time, I am not sure we will get anywhere.
But I do agree that a majority of the work done to create major changes is done one drop at a time. My position is that I am not necessary most suitable for doing that kind of work
.
On the other point, I would also argue that we do have to remember there are times when the cup is half empty. Not that we have to live in despair or fear constantly, but we do have to be careful about being too content with things in front of us. If we only focus in how well things are here, in America, how will we ever notice the third world countries where things aren't so well? If we never see a little sadness and failures in things, how will we ever strive to make them better?
But what you and I are saying are not mutually exclusive. We aren't limited to having one thought at a time. We can have many, in an organized manner. We do have to have hope and optimism in order to believe we can create big changes one day. But we also have to have a little sadness and regrets to understand we are not perfect, to understand we can always learn to do better, and to understand that there will always be limitations that we cannot breach within our life time.
Are we going to let our fear and depression stop us from doing anything at all? No. But we do have to learn to deal with failures, learn to understand it, and conquer it, because there are many instances when things won't go so well in our lives. And how do we pick ourselves up from failures? Hope and optimism of course
. And a little humility, and lots of hard work.
There are times when we need to be happy and let things be, and there are times when we need to be sad and strive to do better. The key is to strike a balance between the two. Doesn't that apply to everything else in our lives?
Again, there are more that unite us than divide us. Sadness is just one of them, but a very powerful one nonetheless.
Last weekend I was participating at the Relay For Life at UC Davis, being one of many there walking to raise money for cancer. Each step I took was a drop in the bucket. But those who envisioned Relay For Life had big ideas, and they were able to lift the world up using those big ideas. Many were also there because they lost someone from cancer, or knew someone who lost someone from cancer.
Sadness was definitely a major factor that brought these people together. But if you walk on the track in the other direction, and watching people as they run toward you for the 11th hour, you will see lots of smiles, you will hear lots of music, and you will feel lots of hopes and optimism.