Last night I watched our president delivering his last state of the union address.  I thought about campaigning for him for a month in New Hampshire in 2008 and again in 2012.  The excitement of that work and the devotion to this brilliant man of impeccable character and positive vision.

I subscribe to the daily thoughts from the Napoleon Hill Foundation. This one arrived this morning and just took my breath away. 

Every thought you release becomes a permanent part of your character.

Thoughts are things. Every thought you release — good or bad — is a form of energy that can affect those who receive it, for better or worse. More important, your thoughts affect you. You become what you think about most. If you think about success, you condition your mind to seek success, and you attract large portions of it. Conversely, if you think about failure and despair, you will become miserable and desperate. To keep your mind on a positive track, the moment you begin to experience creeping negativism, make a conscious decision to eliminate negative thoughts and replace them with their positive counterparts.

The creeping climate of fear, rage and racism that has arisen in the past eight years confuses and frightens me.  So many people, it seems, willing to be miserable and desperate.  And then I remember:  rage is easier than love.  It requires nothing of us.  It is mindless, reactive and addictive. 

Lovingkindness is hard work.  Not because it is difficult in itself, but because it means that we have to become vulnerable, willing to listen, open to feeling what is actually happening in our bodies and minds.  It means letting go of being right or wrong and opening to just being. 

In this picture I took during the 2012 campaign on a cold early November morning in Concord, NH, I love the skyward look of the young boy echoing the skyward look of our president asking us to move forward with courage and compassion.  I pray that we will do that now, again, each day, each one of us, together.