I spotted a teacher headed into work at the Hadley School in Swampscott during my morning walk and said to her, “Thanks for the hard job you do.”
The same can be said for all of us who spend more of our time giving ourselves to our country rather than taking from it. Through a pandemic and an election year with seemingly no end in sight, we have plodded on and done our respective jobs.
Now we have a new task to shoulder. For better or worse, Election Day has come and gone. The arguments and finger-pointing will continue. Charges and counter charges will be leveled and accusations of conspiracies and plots will probably abound through Thanksgiving.
But the time has come to turn away from the politicians and pundits and for each one of us to look into the mirror and echo John F. Kennedy’s words by asking ourselves what we are ready to do for our country.
The future of the nation rests in our hands. There are a third of a billion of us. But subtract the too-young, the elderly, the ill and those already carrying their burden in the military — that leaves the rest of us with a big task to shoulder.
First and foremost, we need to act locally. What are we doing on our streets and in our neighborhoods to make them safer and to address the racial and economic inequalities that define America?
Calls for racial justice erupted after George Floyd’s murder and people took to the streets to protest. Not all of us are protesters but all of us must hold elected officials, beginning with local officials, accountable for discussing and making changes that lead to equality.
The fractious election year has divided families, coworkers and friends. The pandemic relentlessly nudges even the most outgoing among us toward isolation. We must begin to reach out and put action before words. We can volunteer, we can launch new initiatives, we can knock on a door, send a text, or make a phone call and simply ask, “How are you?”
Those three words might just be the vaccine needed to begin healing a nation. They express in their simplicity our basic human need to be cared for and to care for others.
We also need to reaffirm what it means to be an American. Veterans Day is around the corner. Let’s forget about politicians and go find a veteran and thank that person for the selfless service they rendered for our nation.
We need to run for office. The battle for the presidency galvanized our attention but many “down-ballot” races featured incumbents who ran unopposed. Democracy works because people bring new ideas to the political forum.
Someone once said that you can’t really live the American dream until you have started your own business and run for elected office. The operative words in that sentence are “started” and “run,” not “succeeded” and “elected.” We are a country built on the backs of people who tried something new and frightening even in the face of certain failure and, possibly, death.
Lastly, let’s stop blaming others for the nation’s problems. We are a nation built on the ideal that we are created equal. The flip side of that ideal is the firmly-held American belief that we make our own destinies.
It’s time for all us who are capable of doing the work to remember what is great about this country and strike out on the path of destiny.
We have a lot of work to do and it won’t get done unless we shoulder the load and get going.
