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I have an admission to make – last night, I had a shocking thing happen. I momentarily lapsed into non-optimistic thoughts. It had nothing to do with politics or business. It had to do entirely with an Act of God.

In Portland, we’ve had huge windstorms. During dinner at a friend’s house, a massive tree branch came crashing through my Prius back window. I love nature, but this time, my love affair was tainted for a night and the next morning.

So, after having seriously f@*#ked up dreams all night, I went for a long run in the morning and began processing my thoughts.  Before, my run I glanced at the NY Times front page article titled “Poll Finds Faith in Obama, Mixed with Patience.” In many of my blog posts, I’ve talked about 2009 being the year of optimism and it has been an optimistic year until the bloody tree limb incident last night. But, I knew I could mentally power thru these dreaded pessimistic thoughts.

The sub-header in the NY Times article was “Most say they expect progress to require at least 2 years”, but I think we as a people in the technology age of immediacy have much less patience than 2 years. My belief is that the Obama administration needs to make significant traction on at least 1 issue and 1 industry within his first 3 months. If not, I think more and more people will become jaded and let their proverbial f#%*king tree limb, pessimistic feelings last longer than 12 hours. So, I put the question out there to 400 followers on Twitter and Dylan Boyd replied immediately with a 1 year horizon to make real changes happen.  Mark Kelly, an online marketer from Seattle, replied “@ryanbuch re: obama I think we will give him the typical 2-3 mos because of our extreme short term focus. Dems will be more patient.”

Whatever the timeline is, you gotta give Obama credit for his ability to inspire. I’ve been listening on NPR to today’s 750,000 person celebration, speeches, musical performances. Yes, there are huge expectations on our new President, but let’s give him some credit for jumping into the trenches with us on economic issues and global political issues 2 1/2 months before his job starts. As an entrepreneur, I have a lot of self-motivation. But sometimes, it helps to know that we are part of a larger effort to make a hugely positive impact on the world and create some amazing jobs and opportunities in the process.