Thank you, Mr. President

I turned 21 on November 5, 2008. My birthday began with me and a group of friends in our dorm’s common room, glued to the TV to witness Barack Obama, my senator from the great state of Illinois, become the 44th president of the United States. I couldn’t think of a better birthday gift because like so many Americans, I had yearned for change and had nothing but hope.

This year, I turn 29 a few days before we elect a new president, and as we get closer to the end of the Obama administration, I approach the end of my 20s. I spent eight of arguably the most formative years of my life growing along with President Obama, and I can say without any doubt, that he has been the most influential person in my political awakening.

What’s been most infectious has been his unrelenting hope in the face of Republican obstructionism, a tough reelection, supporter dissatisfaction, and hard lessons learned a little too late. As I’ve gone through my personal up and downs of this trying decade of early adulthood, I have sought solace in his words time and time again. For instance, I moved to D.C. in the spring of 2012 because I wanted to make a difference, which at 24, I thought meant becoming a congressional aide. It was a humbling experience fighting for a job on the Hill and for the four months I searched and searched, I played Obama’s 2012 Barnard Commencement speech on repeat:

“… remember that making your mark on the world is hard. It takes patience. It takes commitment. It comes with plenty of setbacks and it comes with plenty of failures.

But whenever you feel that creeping cynicism, whenever you hear those voices say you can’t make a difference, whenever somebody tells you to set your sights lower — the trajectory of this country should give you hope. Previous generations should give you hope. What young generations have done before should give you hope. Young folks who marched and mobilized and stood up and sat in, from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall, didn’t just do it for themselves; they did it for other people.”

By acknowledging my creeping cynicism and recounting the upward trajectory of our country, Obama comforted me through many crying sessions and gave me the strength I needed to send out one more resume. Fortunately, I was able to eventually break through, and I spent 3-and-a-half years on Capitol Hill.

Throughout these years, I learned some hard lessons about the reality of governing, policy, politics, and most importantly, human behavior. My idealistic fervor dimmed and in its stead settled a growing fear that we could not be better tomorrow than we were today. How could we? How could we possibly ensure a better world for future generations when we were debating basic science? How could we be a fair society when we couldn’t pass equal pay legislation? How could we build a better government when we couldn’t attract talent from across the racial and socioeconomic spectrum? There were some dark days when for the first time in my life, I honestly didn’t know if we as a nation had the ability to be better.

After Obama’s second inauguration, I noticed a change in him as well. He could no longer try to work through overt and unapologetic Republican obstruction. He too had hardened, but more notably, he was recalculating his strategy. This second term, his administration has been issuing executive orders, rules, regulations, and using all the tools at his disposal to achieve his policy agenda because if Congress won’t work with him, he’ll find another way. While Obama is not the first president to take this course of action in his second term, he has returned to causes that he has always wanted to tackle, from immigration reform to overtime pay all with intensity.

That is not to say that I have agreed with him on everything. I have questions and concerns as many of his supporters do. But what’s kept me going has been watching him live by his genuine, unyielding faith that we can all come to the table, find a compromise, and make progress, no matter how painfully incremental it may be. He’s shown me that there are multiple ways to attack a problem and that always, you need patience and commitment to realize meaningful change for those who are hurting the most. When you come across inevitable setbacks and failures, you recalculate and you keep going because our posterity will build from whatever foundation we set.

So, I’m recalculating. I left the public sector this spring, acknowledging that it may not be for me, at least not right now in those specific roles. That doesn’t mean I have given up on doing my part for progress, just that I have yet to find how I can. And while I try to make sense of my skills and aptitudes and recalculate my own route, Obama continues to give me hope in the last few months of his presidency that I can figure this out.

His speech to the 2016 Democratic National Convention in particular is a speech that I know I will replay throughout my life when I need him to tell me that I must keep going because this isn’t a spectator sport, and we all need to do our part because it’s yes we can. I will make mistakes, but that’s okay because that’s what happens when we try. But we have to try every option until we have closed the gap between what America is and what America should be because this is who are we as nation. It’s how we’ve created better opportunities for Americans from all backgrounds and how we’ll continue perfecting our union (to borrow a few of my favorite lines).

So, Mr. President, for picking me up all of these years, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You’ve meant so much to me, and I hope you know that I’ll carry the lessons you’ve taught me every single day.