A Quote by George Papandreou
There are certain moments in the history of a nation when the choices made define the decades to come.
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We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.
My sister made certain choices about the life she wanted. Those choices include a steady job, a husband and children. But balance and stability come at a cost. It is harder for her to be spontaneous. It is harder to just up and leave.
The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences, and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone.
We are living in one of those rare moments in history when things may come apart and be put back together again in ways that will determine the future for decades or more, despite the endless innovations of technology.
Once upon a time, there was a clear set of choices that people made. Now there are so many choices of how to think, how to define ourselves.
While we may lose track of certain goals intermittently throughout the decades, I think we as a nation can be nimble when we need to be. All the buzz today is on the need for science literacy. That is on the agenda in ways it hasn't been in previous decades.
We all have choices we have to make, and with those choices come certain sacrifices.
There are moments that define a person's whole life. Moments in which everything they are and everything they may possibly become balance on a single decision. Life and death, hope and despair, victory and failure teeter precariously on the decision made at that moment. These are moments ungoverned by happenstance, untroubled by luck. These are the moments in which a person earns the right to live, or not.
Defining moments are the moments that either define you, or you define the moment.
I don't think you can lead a nation if you don't have a definition of the nation. We have to define, as Democrats, what a nation is and embrace the entire nation.
We think that it's the big moments that define our lives-the wedding, the baby, the new house, the dream job. But really, these big moments of happiness are just the punctuation marks of our personal sagas. The narrative is written every day in the small, the simple, and the common. In your tiny choices, in these tiny changes. In the unconsidered. The overlooked. The discarded. The reclaimed.
There are moments where history is made... This is one of those moments.
Suppose you have a parallel self who has made different choices, who is following a different event track since you made certain choices in your life. Maybe you can reach to that self and borrow gifts and lessons from that self and maybe even help them on their road.
The question of what we are can only be answered by ourselves. We each decide what we are by the life choices we make. How we were made, who are parents are, where we are from, the color of our skin, who we choose to love, all those things do not define us. Our actions define us, and will keep defining us until even after death.
Barring extreme physical and mental disabilities, each and every one of us is where we are today -- be it poor or wealthy, happy or sad, on the streets or in a condo, in a Mercedes or a rusted-out Pinto -- because of the choices we have made during our lives. It's the choices we have made that put us where we are, not the choices others have made for us.
Each moment in history is a fleeting time, precious and unique. But some stand out as moments of beginning, in which courses are set that shape decades or centuries.
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