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Maybe I'm just stupid. I'm still living the dream we had. For me it's not over.

I feel lucky to have many years ago been labeled as someone who had some Utopian ideas about what humanity was capable of. In a lot of ways I was sold this bill of goods and willingly consumed it. It led me to think that my country was great and noble, that people were kind and compassionate, that American democracy was created to help the whole of human existence move toward a more perfect union. I believed that some day we would have racial and gender equality, that we would serve as an example to the world and have a clean, safe environment, that people would be healthy and fed, that if they were not we as a people and nation would work to lift them up. I believed that we would move to erase poverty and hate and war, that we would allow others to pursue whatever religion or happiness they wanted as long as we all agreed to respect each other.

I believed that our government was created to represent the best of what we were capable of.

I don't know that any of that has happened.

Now, in my life, I have seen tremendous progress. But sometimes it really feels like one step forward, two steps back.

Just be good to people, OK? Just try it. Do one nice thing for someone else today. Just one. Maybe two if you can sum up the enthusiasm. See if it works out.