A World Inspired
Nov 10 2008
Last Tuesday, an articulate, inspiring man was voted into office and people all over the world celebrated. In my own neighborhood, fireworks went off and a group of 25 college and high school students were banging pots and pans and stopping traffic on Hawthorne Street to jubilant honks in passing cars. My family of four walked thru the misty evening and soaked in the positive energy that had our girls jumping up and down gleefully shouting “Obama.” After my wife and I put our girls down to bed, I headed over to a sports bar, OnDeck, for drinks with some close friends – the place was packed and rowdy with 50+ huge TV screens monitoring all of the events of the evening. The bar became immediately silent when President-elect Obama gave his acceptance speech at Grant Park in Chicago. We hung on every word.
Since then, it’s been an adjustment. The party only lasted one night and reality set in the next day with the stock market down and life moving at warp speed. Every newspaper and magazine has blitzed us with this momentous, historic event and Obama has lived up to the expectation, for now. Expectations are so high, that at some point, there will be cracks in his armour. But, hopefully, as a human race that values inspiration, innovation, and progress over fear, we will support him when he stumbles. As an exercise of documenting a few of the videos and articles that mattered most to me, I am showing them below:
Transcript of Obama’s speech >>
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I am excited to join a great panel for an upcoming Software Association of Oregon event called 
November 10th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Ryan the same thing was going on in London. Amazing that it was not just a neighborhood event but a global event. I brought back all the newspapers that I collected that had more of Obama on the news than on anything else going on in England. Wild.
November 10th, 2008 at 9:32 am
It’s been interesting watching how people have been transitioning from the elation of Tuesday to the realities of Wednesday and beyond. Obviously, an election alone changes little, but what I find really inspiring is Obama’s message throughout the campaign, which he repeated again as he clinched his win – “this is only the beginning, and I am not the only one who will bring this change about”.
Now is the time when we take our inspiration and discover how we can use it to better the world around us. We are fortunate to have an incoming leader who both inspires and guides that process, and if we all work to foster it, I imagine we’ll be amazed to find what we can accomplish.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:18 am
I didn’t vote for him, but I hope with all my heart he is up to the challenges ahead. After reading his books, I know he is still on a voyage of self discovery. I hope he discovers the strength and wisdom to lead us through this tangled financial mess.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:39 am
I hear ya Joe – it’s going to be messy for a while, but hopefully we’ll come out of it stronger personally – not sure it will be possible to be stronger as a nation as other countries are in a better position than us to gain market share.