today is my birthday. a celebration of life, love, ambition and dreams. each and every one of us looks forward to that day when we celebrate our uniqueness and are contribution to this world. i can't help but contemplate all that i have experienced in my life and the events to which i have born witness. i am a privileged man. i am blessed. i am happy. and my soul finds solace, comfort, and peace in knowing that from here, from the glorious moment in time life can get better. life will improve. our existence can only ameliorate. and we, as human beings, children of god - no matter the god you pray to, can find hope in this life and build up those around us. i am pleased with the person that i am.
i cannot say that i have no regrets, but i do believe that i wouldn't change a thing. i am the man that i am because of the steps that i have taken on my never-ending journey. in my lifetime i have seen much of that which is ugliest about humanity. i have not lived a life without error. i am no saint. but my heart has
always yearned for those that strive for the good, and i have wept a thousand tears learning of the horrors of human arrogance and pride.
in my lifetime i have seen genocides, hate, racism, abuse, wars, famine and tyranny. i have witnessed the murders of innocents, the violence of discrimination. in my lifetime a people fought for freedom in tiananmen square and were trample by the oppressors. six young boys took their lives because they felt there was no point to go on as those that understood them not mocked them. an entire people was systematically exterminated in rwanda simply because they were different. i stood in horror as i watched the twin towers tumbled to the ground because the nation that built them was believed to be to arrogant according to the faith of another. i have seen the ravages of natural disasters i have seen the humiliation of poverty so extreme that i wept as i laid myself to sleep. i have marveled at the words of a holocaust survivor as he described the merciless death of his comrades and playmates. i still am perplexed that man, humanity, a creation of a just and magnificent, immortal and omnipotent clockmaker, i am stunned that we have inflicted this misery upon ourselves, upon our brothers, our sisters, our own families.
yet through each of these horrific and demonic displays of shear evil, these destructive forces, through them all a tiny seed is planted in the heart of each survivor, of the witnesses. and like the great forest after the fir up springs that seedling of young, beautiful hope. hope that within man there is still goodness. hope that within the heart of each child of god, each woman, each man there is right, a spark of light and life that ever more determinedly pushes out the darkness of distorted beliefs, destroys the damper on the soul, and builds up the defenses of good. not good as defined by any religion but good as defined by our natural heart. it is what makes us human. hope makes us human. and through every ugly moment in our history we have defeated the enemy, which is within each of us, time and time again.
as i reflect on my life and my goals and my existence i can't help but see that hope and yearn for it today.
our world is so broken. we cannot deny that the comfort and stability that we yearn for is defunct, absent, missing from our day to day. we try to continue on without altering our course but the missiles of our disappointed are launched to deter us from moving forward. we as a people are defeating ourselves. we have become both enemy and ally to our own success. be it individually or collectively we are truly our own worst enemy and yet we forget that we are our own greatest ally.
in these trying times, we have defeated so many enemies yet we continue to empower the weakness within our own lives. we continue to enslave our existence to our own vanity and imperfections and forget the power that lies within us. we sit around asking "what can we do? who will save us?" we pray for solutions and search our past for answers to the problems of our digital generation and we forget... we have created this universe, our efforts were set in motion and man has been giving the tools he needs to accept and defy any challenge placed before him.
over the past year i have had a lot of time to reflect. for a short time i was sitting and waiting for something to happen, like rapunzel in a tower, i sat and waited. putting forth little effort and only steaming the ingredients of my own demise. i remained
i cannot say that i have no regrets, but i do believe that i wouldn't change a thing. i am the man that i am because of the steps that i have taken on my never-ending journey. in my lifetime i have seen much of that which is ugliest about humanity. i have not lived a life without error. i am no saint. but my heart has
always yearned for those that strive for the good, and i have wept a thousand tears learning of the horrors of human arrogance and pride.
in my lifetime i have seen genocides, hate, racism, abuse, wars, famine and tyranny. i have witnessed the murders of innocents, the violence of discrimination. in my lifetime a people fought for freedom in tiananmen square and were trample by the oppressors. six young boys took their lives because they felt there was no point to go on as those that understood them not mocked them. an entire people was systematically exterminated in rwanda simply because they were different. i stood in horror as i watched the twin towers tumbled to the ground because the nation that built them was believed to be to arrogant according to the faith of another. i have seen the ravages of natural disasters i have seen the humiliation of poverty so extreme that i wept as i laid myself to sleep. i have marveled at the words of a holocaust survivor as he described the merciless death of his comrades and playmates. i still am perplexed that man, humanity, a creation of a just and magnificent, immortal and omnipotent clockmaker, i am stunned that we have inflicted this misery upon ourselves, upon our brothers, our sisters, our own families.
yet through each of these horrific and demonic displays of shear evil, these destructive forces, through them all a tiny seed is planted in the heart of each survivor, of the witnesses. and like the great forest after the fir up springs that seedling of young, beautiful hope. hope that within man there is still goodness. hope that within the heart of each child of god, each woman, each man there is right, a spark of light and life that ever more determinedly pushes out the darkness of distorted beliefs, destroys the damper on the soul, and builds up the defenses of good. not good as defined by any religion but good as defined by our natural heart. it is what makes us human. hope makes us human. and through every ugly moment in our history we have defeated the enemy, which is within each of us, time and time again.
as i reflect on my life and my goals and my existence i can't help but see that hope and yearn for it today.
our world is so broken. we cannot deny that the comfort and stability that we yearn for is defunct, absent, missing from our day to day. we try to continue on without altering our course but the missiles of our disappointed are launched to deter us from moving forward. we as a people are defeating ourselves. we have become both enemy and ally to our own success. be it individually or collectively we are truly our own worst enemy and yet we forget that we are our own greatest ally.
in these trying times, we have defeated so many enemies yet we continue to empower the weakness within our own lives. we continue to enslave our existence to our own vanity and imperfections and forget the power that lies within us. we sit around asking "what can we do? who will save us?" we pray for solutions and search our past for answers to the problems of our digital generation and we forget... we have created this universe, our efforts were set in motion and man has been giving the tools he needs to accept and defy any challenge placed before him.
over the past year i have had a lot of time to reflect. for a short time i was sitting and waiting for something to happen, like rapunzel in a tower, i sat and waited. putting forth little effort and only steaming the ingredients of my own demise. i remained
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