They say history repeats itself and they are absolutely right. Yet we all know this and we let it happen. We stand idly by while we make the same mistakes, over and over again. We are living the blatant definition of insanity: making the same mistakes and expecting different results. We forget that everyday is apart of history and that our decisions matter; that they shape our future textbooks. Today may seem insignificant, but today is lumped in with tomorrow and so on. Then, before you even realize it, it is no longer today, it is the first hundred days of Donald Trump’s Presidency. Today is no longer just today, it is now history. It is a small part of the bigger picture. It is the building block to our future society, government, and economy. Today matters.
So why do we stand by and submit to history? We submit to our predecessors and their mistakes. We bow down to the empires that fell and the regimes that collapsed. We sit on our knees, repeating the blunders of our history as if we never knew it repeated itself. As if we never knew that this intoxicating cycle was inevitable.
Why do we allow our President to spread hateful speech? We know what hate does to a nation, to a society. Did the civil rights movement teach us nothing? We can only be oppressed and hated for so long until we rebel. Until we realize that we are the change and hate is the catalyst. Hate has torn apart nations and triggered wars. We cannot submit to the hate, we must overcome it. President Trump is an educated man and has the ability to be a decent President. He has the ability to help the American economy and help our nation reach real progress. It is a shame he spreads hate instead of help. Potential can only get someone so far, they have to work to unlock it. He expels radical thoughts and ideas and radicalism is the fall of any leader, rationality is the answer. Show reform, not regression. Show tolerance to our nation and the people that compose it.
We cannot submit to the history of hatred, we must conquer it. We are better than our past, we are stronger than our history. Past leaders and dynasties ruled and reigned so that we can learn from their legacies and come out wiser and better than before. What would Napoleon say if we were to bite off more than we can chew? What would Machiavelli say if we were to sacrifice the well-being of the state to greed and intolerance? What would Louis XVI say if he saw us ignoring our own people, similar to how he once did? We are supposed to move forward, but it is as if we are taking three steps backwards. Let us not make the early 2000s a time period referenced as a political dark age. Let us make it a time of glory. A time of economic, political, and social strides and success.
I propose we stop the repetition and we create change. We do not stand by idly and pretend that today does not matter. Today is not just one day. It is a complete rotation of the Earth, it is 24 hours, it is 1440 minutes, it is 86400 seconds. Today is not just one day, today is already history. Today is not going to be another day we submit to history; it will be the day we change it. The day we realize that the cycle is toxic and that the only solution to this disaster is progress. The day that we transcend our history and create a flourishing future.
Originally published at medium.com