‘I can’t do it’

I recently had a look at Franklin D Roosevelt’s 1st inaugural speech on becoming president of the USA. It’s the one where he said, ‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’

This was in 1932, 3 years after the wall street crash sent the global economy into a recession that makes this one look like a tea party. In ‘the great depression’, millions lost everything; with no benefits system, when you lost your job, you lost your house and starved. In Germany, the crisis opened the way for Hitler and the Nazis. In the US, it gave us FDR – the only President to win 4 consecutive elections.

What’s remarkable about Roosevelt – and starkly contrasts with our political leadership today – is that he had a real vision for how to solve the problem. It wasn’t just ‘we’re going to cut back and it will probably all sort itself out.’ He had a plan to handle the complexities of the problem and propel a vast, hopeless nation into the greatest prosperity the world has ever known. And his plan worked.

Now when I look at the mess of our country today, nine gazillion pounds in debt or whatever it is, I don’t have a clue what to do about it. I’ve got a couple of nice ideas for little things that could help, but no solution to a global recession. The best I can come up with is, ‘well its all silly anyway as there’s only a recession on because someone decided there was and everybody believed them. Nothing real has actually changed.’ True, but that doesn’t alter the fact that people are losing their jobs, their businesses and their savings. We don’t need more insightful criticism. We need someone to do something. We need our own FDR.

But as I say that, this thought pops into my head that, you know, obviously that’s not possible. ‘Maybe back in history leaders could solve problems but not now. Now things are much too complex.’ I genuinely cannot imagine a person coming forward and leading us out of this mess. It doesn’t seem possible.

The thing is, I suspect that that’s exactly how everyone felt in 1932. ‘This is horrific, it’s ridiculous, and there’s nothing we can do about it.’ ‘This is far too complex for one man to make a difference. Maybe back in history...’ And yet one man did step forward and save the nation. It happened.

Maybe what’s keeping us in this mess is actually a crisis of belief. We don’t believe things can be any better. We don’t believe solutions can be found. And so we don’t go and find a way. It seems to me that we stick the label ‘impossible’ on far too many things; or at least, I do.

“I can’t cook.” “I can’t tell them no.” “I can’t get a job I actually want.” We’re like the child who huffingly fiddles with their shoelaces before throwing them down and declaring, “See – I can’t do it!” We can’t because we don’t really try, and we don’t really try because we don’t think we can. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I see it a lot among people my age, starting out in the working world. They don’t even bother trying to do the work they’d love to because they assume there are no jobs in it, or that they wouldn’t beat the competition. I often feel that myself (I certainly hear it said a lot).

Anything I’ve tried to do, from rehearsing a play to fixing my bike, has had all sorts of circumstances pop up against it. Nothing is easy, and nothing turns out perfectly like you dreamed it might. But you can make stuff happen if you believe and fight for it.

I heard someone say that most people are reactive, and only a few proactive. Now honestly it is harder work to proactively try to change the world for the better, than just take it as it comes. But because everyone else is reactive, if you are proactive, they will make room for you!

Speaking as a natural cynic, cynicism is easy. To believe is hard – not because it is unreasonable, but because it means you have to do something. Our world needs people who believe. Will you be one of them?