Love Letter to America

Hi everybody,

I wanted to send out a note about love as we kickoff October. Not quite time for a Valentine’s special, but I’ve never felt a stronger need for love to be championed in America right now.

The emotion being felt throughout the country right now is off the charts. Make no mistake, 2020 was a year of tremendous psychological trauma. And it’s not like the assaults just started recently. Every day we’re being bombarded with scary information, ideas that seem to violate our core beliefs, and hardship of every form you can imagine.

I’m so grateful to have had my family throughout these ordeals. I am incredibly lucky, and truly privileged to have such loving, kind, and generous people that care about me. We were taken in during a crisis, and we thrived together. I love my family more than I can describe.

I’m grateful to be an American, and am thankful for my neighbors and community. In Colorado Springs, we were surrounded by an idyllic community that safely enjoyed a beautiful spring and summer. Back in San Francisco, we love the people in our building who wear masks at all times, but let their dogs get close to Evi so she can wave. I remember some of the darkest projections when the threats of the pandemic were most uncertain, and am so thrilled that we’re nowhere even close to those scenarios.

Things aren’t perfect. If you want to scare yourself, there are myriad tools available to do so unfortunately. The burdens of responsibility people are placing on themselves to solve the world’s problems weigh so heavy right now.

But please try to remember that we are in fact in the midst of the greatest prosperity that mankind has even known. It may not be equally distributed, but in macro terms we as a country and humanity as a race are experiencing global abundance, technological miracles, and are further along the mission of gender/racial/social tolerance than we’ve ever been before.

I’m greedy, I want more of all of it. I want my family and my neighbors and the world to be even more prosperous, more advanced, more peaceful every single year. I will work as hard as I can for the rest of my life to contribute however I can.

But I will be patient. I will not sacrifice my love for others because I disagree with how they think. We will grow better by working together, pretty much no matter what. I am proud to be an independent thinker who has and will continue to vote for both major parties. But most importantly, as a citizen, I consider it my most important duty to love and support my fellow Americans. I studied religion extensively growing up, and I am a big fan of the concept that while justice is righteous, love and forgiveness are regarded higher in the eyes of God.

I encourage you all to try your hardest to love and support your fellow Americans during these hard times, in spite of almost anything. The harder it is to do, the more important it is that you try. I believe that our country depends on a shared belief that we can make this work, and a commitment to do our best to love and help each other. I genuinely do not know what the world will look like in 60 days, but I know that our success depends on us coming together as families, communities, and citizens. If you’re feeling hate, anger, and fear in your heart, please try your best to fight it, and I promise that a vast majority of the time you’ll find that your negative emotion was pointed in the wrong direction. The vision in your head that upsets you is a caricature, and often in reality is just a good person and fellow normal American, maybe even somebody who loves and cares for you. If you’re reading this and think it’s a personal attack, please try reframing your perspective, as I’m writing this with the best intentions in mind for everybody, and am having a variety of conversations with people on all sides.

It may feel like this is “the final battle”, but its not. Our country has faced world wars, cold wars, civil wars, and there will be many more to come. I hope we strive to maintain a foundation of love throughout. Like my favorite (fictional) hometown hero Rocky Balboa said, everybody can change [in spite of hate].

And if you don’t believe me, please feel free to respond privately and I’d be thrilled to have a conversation with you. I believe our democracy was founded on good people having intelligent dialogue with each other trying to become more educated so they can build a better world. I’d love to hear your perspective if you’re willing to really talk, especially if it’s different from my own — that’s how I learn. Apologies for slow responses, there’s just not enough time ;)

I believe in America, love this country, and love you all. Wishing the best possible to everybody for the rest of 2020 and beyond!

Omar