President Barack Obama,
Dear Mr. President,
Congratulations on your inauguration. I wish you a successful presidential term full of inspiring service to your country and to the world.
I am writing to you because, now as the president of the United States, your decisions are bound to influence directly or indirectly the future of my four-year-old daughter Maria-Helena, just as it would for all forms of life on the planet.
You are carrying a heavy load. Most people can only begin to imagine the burden of the responsibility that you have just begun to shoulder. It must be monumentally hard to head the world’s largest economy, military, nuclear arsenal and the main super power that is a constant magnet to international attention. It is no wonder that the presidency of the United States is regarded as the most difficult job ever.
Billions of people, let alone your countrymen, look at you every day with great expectations that you will make their lives better and that you will bring solutions to problems that are the making of their hands and that are the legacies of their parents and great grandparents.
You already have the media to remind you of those expectations all the time. You also have the support of a huge administration and an army of advisors, some of whom are perceived as the best living minds in their fields, to give you advice on how to handle challenges and opportunities on a global scale. Nonetheless, it is perhaps for this reason, I thought of humbly sharing with you some insights that come from the quietness of remote reflection rather than from the noise of the daily complexities that surround you.
-Please stay alive. Your election represented a major step of maturity for the people of the United States. It has also inspired hope that although we as humanity often digress in our behavior, we at the same time can make good progress towards facing our dysfunctional issues and that just like Americans are fighting their moral battles with occasional success so can other nations do in confronting their demons. The world has had an exhausting start of the new millennium with mounting violence and economic stress; it does not need another shock. So, do take good care of yourself.
-Just because America has elected a person with African roots and a Hussein middle name for its top post does not mean that life is now rosy and the dark forces of the past are gone. In fact, your election may have triggered them to become more active. Complacency, over-optimism, projection of common logic and generalization of rational thinking can lead to unwelcome surprises.
-Do not push the system too much. It is already overstretched by your election and will need time to digest the big bite that it has swallowed. Give your people time to adapt before you pressure them for more daring “Obama-scale” changes.
-In fact, now that election campaign is over, it may be time to reflect on the concept of “change” that you have advocated. Change to what? Do we stop after changing or do we change again? Is survival and growth about constantly changing? Mr. President, change is a process and not a purpose. Our personal, communal and national mission is not to change but to 1- discover our true self, 2- “be” by living it and 3-put it in the service of other people, communities and nations. The ultimate leadership purpose of any head of state is to help his or her people discover and live their uniqueness as a nation and to employ it in the service of the larger humanity.
-I do not mean to sound untactful sir, but try to keep your feet on the ground. Your ego has every reason to soar for you have come to represent a remarkable chapter in history. Ego can kill in more than one way. Remain an extension of the act of love, tolerance and humility that your election has manifested.
- When you get overwhelmed by the complexity of situations presented to you remind yourself that the mind thrives for tangling issues. The fundamental laws of life are at core simple. Add a filter of simplicity to the rain of advice that you will get at every step of your presidential journey. Life is simpler than it seems to the human mind.
-Trust your gut, your internal wisdom. Like most people, you have enough light within you to distinguish right from wrong. Do not let excessive data generated by over-analysis overwhelm your thinking.
-Make sure your decisions are responsive; driven by purpose, wisdom, compassion and calmness rather than reactive; prompted by pride, anger and hastiness. The White House is not a school or a think tank where policy and leadership simulations are held. Wrong decisions at presidential levels are often very costly.
-Don’t make decisions with your heart alone. Wisdom has a good purpose. However, never hand the steering wheel exclusively to your mind without the companionship of compassion.
- Ask yourself frequently, how would I have approached this situation if
-The world will soon start holding you responsible for the continuity of the mess that it has been creating for millennia. While leadership demands listening with deep empathy to the pains of the people, it also requires that the public be constantly reminded that progress happens when it takes charge of its life and when it does its share of solving its problems.
-It would be right for the American people to expect your interventions to improve their lives. However, please remember your moral and practical obligation towards the rest of the world as well. Being the richest, mightiest and most knowledgeable in an interconnected and interdependent world comes with obligations. Turning a deaf ear to the pains of the world will haunt your presidency and your country; just as the world would be well if the
-Listen and talk to your enemies as much as you do to your friends and allies for it is with your enemies that you need to make peace and in their words lay precious insights.
-However, accept that no matter how well-intentioned, capable and motivated you are, you will not be able to solve most of the problems of your country, let alone the problems of the world. No president can do that without the active contribution of the public. People often need to be made aware that solutions to their troubles lie in their hands, especially when they help each other. “Yes we can” together solve our problems.
-Mr. President, decide early on how you wish yourself and your presidency to be remembered and use every day to build your legacy.
-While it is expected that you spend much of your term in managing crises and in putting off fires, try to champion just one or two of the chronic global problems that are damaging the present of humanity and are endangering its future. As for the rest of the challenges, your greatest contribution would be to use the power of your office to create global awareness and to push and pull humanity to deal with its dysfunctional issues.
- Your biggest challenge, of course, will be to change mindsets locally and abroad. The financial, environmental and moral storms as well as the tremors of violence that are sweeping the world are pure reflections of the ailing beliefs that have been conditioning human behavior. Although the wellbeing of humanity is the responsibility of every person, you are in a position where you can get the entire world, not only its figures of authority, to reflect on its current path and actively question the direction it is going.
Mr. President, this letter of remote reflection may have not added insights to your wisdom. However, I hope that it has reinforced it. I wish that your term becomes a blessing to all humanity. I know that you cannot cure the world, for even others with divine power have tried in vain. Just try to become a loud voice of consciousness and hope and aim to remove some of the many unnecessary pains that all forms of life, not only humanity, are suffering from. It is a very beautiful world sir that you can see it summarized in the flowers of your White House garden and on the faces of your children every time they smile. It is worthy of sacrifices. Yes YOU can!
Kind regards,
Michael Kouly
(michael.kouly@post.harvard.edu)
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