We Can Do Better

As a teacher at the collegiate level, I am sometimes asked by my International students to “explain” America. It’s a big topic! So I simply respond by saying that we “make big mistakes and then we correct them.” It is not an admission of failure. It is an expression of success. My intention is to convey our willingness to do so, as compared to countries that perpetuate policies and ideas that aren’t good for their people. We knew we could do better.

We see numerous examples of this in our history. We withheld the right to vote from women. We engaged in the practice of slavery. We restricted the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman versus all people who love one another, an issue still playing itself out in our society today. We allege that we are tolerant of all religions, and yet for some religions, maybe not so much. These issues, too, will be resolved over time. Because we do the right thing. Our history has proven that people knew that we could do better, and they did.

In Martin Luther King’s carefully crafted speech at the Reflecting Pool, he suggested, in an ever so delicate way, that America had not fulfilled the promise of equality crafted by its forefathers to our Nation’s people. To all of its people. In other words, Martin Luther King knew we could do better.

The people of our nation face such challenges today, such as human rights, poverty, education, nutrition, health care, housing, and more. It seems the more we work to address them, the target that we strive to achieve keeps moving. The capacity of people to volunteer their time toward this end never ceases to amaze us here at The Make Life Good Company.

And it seems that no matter how much we’ve done as a people, and no matter how much the target moves, we know that we can still do better. Given our history, we know we will. Given the urgency, we should start now.

We hope to meet you on the road to doing better and making life good for all.