Today, the World is a Better Place

I have never in my life felt so relieved and so inspired by the results of an election as I am by the selection of Barack Obama as the next President of the United States. Today, the world is a better place.

The next President of the United States inherits an economy in crisis, continuing wars in two countries, and a host of environmental threats to the health and well-being of humans across the globe. And those are the comparatively easy problems.

He also inherits a national and even world mood which has been sapped of much of the optimism and mutual respect and cooperation that can make the job of creating solutions seem both possible and even probable. He inherits a psychological outlook which somewhere along the line began seeing some problems as intractable, some relationships and aliances as irreparable, some challenges as not worth facing.

Those are the comparatively hard problems.

If anything was going to stand in the way of moving the United States and the rest of the world in a more positive direction, it was mood, not the inherent intractability of our problems (hard though they may be).

But when I woke up this morning and saw the news, listened to the speech, read and heard the comments not just from the United States but from around the world, I felt more optimistic and more inspired than I have ever felt by an election result. I believe this election marks the turning point in a trend that began so subtly and so long ago that we might not even have noticed it at the time — I believe it marks a turn toward a whole new attitude to the world and its problems. Psychologically speaking, I believe this is exactly what the world needed.

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Long time readers will know that I’m not one to let someone else do my thinking for me. I don’t feel easily swayed by empty rhetoric or authoritative prognostications. And I certainly won’t cheerlead for a politician just because he or she has some degree of emotional appeal.

But what I am observing in the reactions of others as well as what I am experiencing within myself leads me to believe that Barack Obama is the real deal. That emotional appeal is there not because we’re somehow just being duped by smooth talking and a charismatic presentation, but because we are identifying genuine human qualities that make Barack Obama a real President. I believe we are recognizing that the way forward looks a whole lot more promising now because it actually is a whole lot more promising.

I believe that today, the world is a better place.

• applying psychology
• history
• politics
• positive psychology