You can make the right decision. And you can make the decision right.
So many political analysts, pundits and opinion writers (myself among them!) were expecting, even hoping that Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro would be selected by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris to be her pick for Vice President. For some of them, in the wake of her choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, that hope has turned to cope.
Most of you know what it’s like to be the hope of your family. You may be pursuing a career path in an occupation in which no one in the family before you has ever practiced and succeeded. Your income may be above all the rest of the kinfolks. You may have purchased the first home the bloodline has ever known, elevating the whole tribe from generational urban renters to suburban owners. Because of your line of work, you may have traveled the world in business and first class. You may arrive at the airport on the opposite coast, to a tuxedo-clad gentleman holding a small placard with your name on it, waiting to escort you to an idling sedan, that whisks you to and from the airport in the city where you often do your industry business. You may regularly wake up in a luxury hotel, to a fine breakfast wheeled in on a room service cart, by a server you have learned to tip well. You may be living your best life on a level that no one in your family has ever experienced before you. You are the hope of the family.
Many of you know what it’s like to be the hope of your community. You may be that athlete who showed early promise as a kid on the court, who excelled in your sport from a very young age all the way through high school and college – with a shelf full of trophies to trumpet your talents on all the fields of your childhood dreams. You may have repeatedly represented your county in regional tournaments and prevailed at the top of your game in state championships year after year. You are the hope of the community.
Some of you know what it’s like to be the hope of your culture. Straight out of college you may have landed that entry-level corporate gig, making the initial steps into the industry in which you wish and plan to excel; and when you look around the boardroom table, you see for the first real time that no one seated there looks like you, that you are a first and an only. Many of us have been there – in a moment when you, briefly, remember the people back in the neighborhood who are smiling because they know you are there. You steal a moment of attention from the minutes of the meeting to reflect on the ancestors who wished and willed you there, from the other side of this reality. You remember who you are and know that you are the hope of the culture.
Breathing even rarer air, a few of you know what it’s like to be the hope of our country. You have competed and won – jockeying, tussling and fighting – earning your way to the national stage and spotlight. Your platform is large and you are in charge. The scale and scope of your influence is vast. And all eyes are upon you. The hands of the masses are cupped before you, in full expectation of the manna you are offering. Hordes of people are openly cheering for you and others are secretly expecting and awaiting your every misstep and your ultimate downfall. For millions of citizens you will never meet and for some whose hands you will shake somewhere on a rope line, you are the hope of the country.
And so it is a heavy lift to please all those whose blood, sweat and tears are invested in your ultimate success at winning the top prize. When you have hundreds of people on your payroll, whose livelihoods depend on every decision you make each day, it can feel like the whole world is sitting on your shoulders. When you know that every little step you take is reported throughout all media, worldwide, it is inevitable that you will disappoint some of those who are ever observing and critically reporting on every detail of what you do, those who are cynically hanging on every word you speak, and who are carefully reading between every line spoken and every word unuttered. And when you do not, at every turn, do what they think you should do, how easily their hope turns to cope.
How you hold and handle the hope that others invest in you is a spiritual practice. You cannot and will not please every person in your world – that is a mission impossible. What you can do is please yourself, satisfy your own soul, keep a clear consciousness, and when you do make a mistake (which we all do!), you can always (or at least usually!) make the decision right.
You can make the right decision. And you can make the decision right.
In the aftermath of the decisions that you make, that others then second-guess and call mistakes, you are wise to know your reasons well and to be able to articulate your decision-making calmly, clearly and confidently – not getting caught up in and bogged down by the “copium” of others orbiting your world. The commentariat will always have something to say about everything you do. Hear them, listen to them, but do not believe them when they tell you that you have made a bad choice. Time will reveal. And in the meantime, put all your energy (and innergy) into making your good decision the right decision.
We research. We study. We ponder. We listen. We consider. We pray. We meditate. We make the right decision. And we make the decision work. And if time proves otherwise – with grace, gratitude and humility – as best we can, we make the decision right.