Something changed in my thought today, and I’m not sure I’m going to explain this well, but the change in my thought brought me a weird sort of comfort. I stopped being disappointed in my country, and found myself disillusioned instead.

It came to me that this vision I’ve held of my country as a noble place of freedom and “the land of opportunity” has always been an illusion. We’ve never been that. There have been good people in this country, for sure – people of courage and integrity, kindness and compassion – but there has always been racism and bigotry, greed and me-first-ness in this country, too. My nation isn’t unique in this – most every nation on this planet has dealt with the insanity we’re seeing so brazenly exhibited in the U.S. right now. But today it became clear to me that we’re no better than any other country, and sometimes we’re a lot worse.

And accepting that – accepting that we’ve always been flawed – has sort of relieved the stress of trying to “get back to” what I thought we were. Now I’m looking forward to moving past what we’ve always been, and helping my country progress towards what it could be. The time has never been more ripe for progress in the United States, and in the world.

“You were chosen. All of you. Not because of who you are, but because of who you might become.” (A line from Now You See Me 2)