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Hey GlobalGrinders! it’s @ConnieChris

Yesterday, the nation prepared to watch President Obama speak in a Town Hall to address the youth. Today I’m reflecting on the many different ways I felt during his campaign run to the White House.  I have to be honest in saying that I now feel disappointed and ashamed.

Oftentimes as a people we take on the notion that once a task is completed, we are justified in sitting back and relaxing. I feel that this belief is evident in our lack of enthusiasm for change in the two years since WE elected Barack Obama as President. We’ve lost it! All of us!

I can remember being excited to go to the rallies in my area! It made me proud to be able to say that I was there. But even more than that, his campaign gave me the permission to dream again, to believe that the impossible could very well be possible. It motivated me to “be the change I wanted to see in the world.” See, when President Obama spoke of CHANGE, it spoke more to my spirit than to my wallet.

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Not that I wasn’t concerned about our country’s, and my, economic state – I was and still am – but I saw the bigger picture. My spirit told me it was ALL bigger than the moment. I felt like this was only the beginning. I felt a power that I had never felt before. I felt the MAGIC!

There was nothing that could stand in the way of the greatness, individually and collectively, that we were destined for. Barack Obama spoke to my heart and my spirit as a human being. I told myself that I was an integral part, as we all are, in making THIS LIFE better.

How I was going to do my part was going to be through service to other with a loving spirit. I pledged to do more in my community by volunteering. I made it a point to watch and listen every time he spoke so that I could relay his message of hope and togetherness to others. I worked the phone banks and neighborhood walks. I was inspired! I was determined! We were going to see a New Day and I was going to be a part of it!

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Tuesday, November 4, 2008 was supposed to be the day that served as confirmation that we all done the good and right thing and kicked this whole plan into overdrive. It was supposed to be the day that we got our second wind and “re-upped” for the next leg.

Instead, as we watched the numbers roll in and it was clear then that Barack Obama would indeed be the man to lead this free nation as the 44th President, we let out a huge collective exhale and reconciled both consciously and subconsciously that our jobs were done. We went from “Yes We Can” to “Yes We Did”, but what had we really done?

We had labored, some for two years, to get to this moment. We had gotten the prize. Or so we thought. I say we, because I include myself in believing that we had accomplished what was set out in front of us. I am ashamed at that, now, and even disappointed.

We rode the wave with Obama and had his back all the way to the White House. Now, I feel as though the glitz and glamour and the “history” has been made we have left him to fend for himself. We have not walked away from him, completely, yet we have lost the drive and the hunger to bring about the CHANGE that we all talked so mu