Things We Can Be Sure Of

As we discussed at the beginning of this year, hope alone is not a prudent basis for planning or investing; however, it is often the genesis of great things.

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

In the face of populist rage against large financial firms and corporate executives -- an attitude that I believe feeds upon itself and makes an economic recovery all the more difficult -- I stumbled over a wonderful ray of light amidst the pessimism, uncertainty and rage -- a recent BusinessWeek article, written by Jack & Suzy Welch, called "Put Your Rage on the Back Burner."

Within this short article, I found many reasons for hope now -- not necessarily hard evidence of an economic recovery in the short-term, but refreshing faith in the positive undercurrents that exist in spite of (and especially in) difficult times:

These are things we can be sure of:

...right now as you read this, there are hundreds if not thousands of geeky, brilliant engineering wonks sitting in their dorm room at MIT and Stanford, not to mention campuses around the world, oblivious to the weather as they pour their hearts into cool new ideas.

...legions of people out there aren't frightened by the economy. They're called entrepreneurs. And challenges don't make them surrender; they make them fierce.

...right now, in companies large and small, new and old, teams of employees are huddled in meetings, working their butts off to figure out how to save their organizations -- and the jobs of their coworkers.

...in laboratories around the world, medical researchers are putting in their 18-hour days as they try to unlock the human genome and create cures beyond imagining.

...on a warm spring day, a mother and father will hold back tears as they watch the first member of their family graduate from college. You can be sure countless other parents will feel that same pride.

You can be sure that for every jerk who undermines business with his compromised ethics there are 99 decent hard-working people who wake up every day determined to do right...

You can be sure that this summer there will be a new song on the radio that is so catchy and fun you can't get it out of your head...

Can you think of other things that we can all be sure of now -- things that are not being reported by the mass media -- those things that give us hope and faith in humanity? Have you noticed (or are you doing) positive or promising things in your corner of the world? If so, I'd love to hear about them...