Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize!

Today President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, not so much for his accomplishments in his short time in office but according to the Nobel Prize Committee, "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".

A number of people in the United States, including President Obama himself, along with some from the international community believe that his actions are not deserving to be considered among the efforts and actions of those such as Nelson Mandela, Wangari Maathai and Mother Teresa. I look at this action by the committee not so much as a recognition of his physical accomplishments but a recognition of the Obama's extraordinary feat of changing the tone and mindset of the way our nation interacts with our global neighbors from a conquistador coyboy mindset to mindful and grassroots oriented diplomacy.

While President Obamas nomination comes as a surprise to the whole world, I see this as a hopeful and inspiring encouragement, or rather a push to our president, to the people of the United States and those worldwide to create action from the hope and promise Obama has renewed in us. I feel so happy and fortunate to be part of all the amazing historical events our president has created.

Things in our world need to change, they need to change drastically and they need to change now. A quote by the philisopher J. Krishnamurti (thanks to a friend who recently introduced me to him) is very fitting for our situation, ¨It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society¨ and that is what we are living in today, a profoundly sick society. We all have talents, abilities and strengths that we need to utilized to get involved and start changing our sick society into a healthy and peaceful one for all people. This isn´t a utopian way of thinking, if we don´t change our personal actions, our values, our ways of thinking and our relationships, we will continue to contribute to the destruction of ourselves, nature and this world.

The Nobel Peace Prize that Obama won is for all of us. Its a call to action to make a difference. He can´t and won´t do it alone.

I hope you all see this as an honor and a responsibility to strengthen your relationships in a positive way with those around you, those who are miles and oceans away, with nature, with yourself and with everything around you. Its time to reenchant ourselves with the world, respect it and do something to finally start giving back to it after continually taking and taking.