Of All Times in which to Live, You Would Choose Today

I don't think in terms of one year, but I can tell people what I genuinely believe, which is that if we take responsibility in being involved in our own fate if we participate, if we engage, if we speak out, if we work in our communities, if we volunteer, if we see the joy that comes from service to others, then all the problems that we face are solvable despite all the terrible news that you see, despite all the genuine cruelty, pain, and hardship people are experiencing all around the world at any given moment of any given day.

If you had to choose a moment in human history in which you would want to be born, and you didn't know ahead of time if you were gonna be Prince Harry or Barack Obama or a small child in rural Africa or India, you'd choose today because the fact is that the world is healthier, wealthier, better educated, more tolerant, more sophisticated, and less violent than just about any time in human history. You think about the history of the United States, it was only a few generations ago where someone who looked like me was in bondage or if not in bondage then servitude and couldn't even imagine having this conversation in this hotel room. It was just a few generations ago where routinely women couldn't aspire to anything beyond caring for their children--the most noble thing you can do--but I want my daughters to do other things and they can do other things now while still raising a family. It was just a few generations ago, at a time when your grandmother, her majesty, was already an adult when half the world was aflame and sixty million people were killed in a great global war. And when you think about just the strides we've made just in my lifetime, I have some gray hair, but on the scale of human history I'm a blink of the eye, you think about how much has changed and how much has gotten better, that has to make you optimistic. As long as you don't start thinking that any of us can sit back passively and assume it continues. History doesn't just run forward, it runs backwards and sideways. It requires us to continually push.