I first came to New Orleans at age three to see my mother who was
in nursing school at Charity Hospital. I came at 15 to hear the Dixieland music.
I have loved this great city all my life.
President Bush and I have had a wonderful time together in heading
up the relief fund drive. Life doesn’t always take you in a predictable
direction, but it’s important to understand where you start and have some
sense of how to get to where you want to go.
When I look at Katrina, I see a manifestation of the most important
fact of our lives—the interdependence of people on this planet. We live
in the most globally interdependent time in history—and that can be good
news, bad news, or both. We can’t escape each other. We are all in this
boat together, whether we like it or not. The work of all citizens, especially
those who have good education and good potential, is to build the positive and
reduce the negative forces of interdependence—to work for security against
terror and weapons of mass destruction, the killing of innocents, the spread of
deadly diseases, and against the preventable suffering from natural disasters.
You also have to build the positive forces of interdependence. We
benefit from trade and travel, information technology, scientific research, music
and culture, but half of the world’s people aren’t a part of it. They
live on less than $2 a day. By fighting against poverty, disease, and ignorance,
and by giving more people a chance to gain a great education, you make a better
life for yourself and your children.
So, that’s a decision for you to make. An enormous amount of
good can be done by people as private citizens. We have believed this from the
time our country was founded. Benjamin Franklin created the first volunteer fire
department before the Constitution was ratified. In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville
wrote in Democracy in America that Americans had the propensity for just
getting together in communities and working together to solve a problem, and not
waiting for the state to solve it for them. Today this volunteer movement is sweeping
the globe. Whatever you do in your life, find some space in it to be a private
citizen doing public good—trying to build a world of shared benefits, responsibilities,
and values through your volunteer service.
I have two bits of advice that is based on what I have learned in
life:
First, you will be happier if you cultivate “the discipline
of gratitude” toward your family and those whose services make your life
better. Being grateful reminds you that no matter how bad things are in your life,
many people are worse off—and this gives you the courage to go on.
Second, dream your dreams and try to live them. Life’s largest disappointments are not rooted in our failures or mistakes. All who live long
enough will make their fair share of both. The greatest disappointments are in
the absence of passionate commitment and effort—the sense of not having
tried. You may not end up exactly where you want to go in life, but following
your stars will guarantee you a marvelous journey. And it will enable you to begin
again. Hemingway wrote: “Life breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong
at the broken places.”
Life’s like that. It is always about new beginnings. I wish
you many. PE
