Hope comes back down to Earth...

After nearly two years, one of the world's most memorable campaigns finally came to a close with the climactic and historical election victory of Barack Obama on November 4th. The chants of 'hope', 'change' and 'yes we can' have become staples of a revamped America and his campaign seemed to bring out the best in his supporters. Quite simply, the campaign was electric.

But now we're over a week past that momentous occasion and things seem to have settled down quite a bit. There's no more Barack supporters running around in droves trying to spread the word of 'hope' and Obama's speeches now lack the same vigour they were once made famous for. But is this necessarily a bad thing?

The campaign was ultimately successful in what it was trying to accomplish: putting Obama in the White House. The first stage of 'yes we can' was certainly met when his victory was announced. But the sense of 'hope' is still very much there, only it has now been toned down. 

After we all finally leveled off our post-Nov. 4th highs, it became time to get back to business. Not just for Mr. Obama, but for everyone else. Obama wasn't simply telling everyone how he could 'change' the world and America, he was saying how everyone together could do it. He was offering an open invitation for everyone to participate. 

And we did our first job by getting him elected. The next stage is on us to do our part in our own lives. 

You can sense it even here in Canada. We were more caught up in that election than our own election. But now that it's over, we can get back to our lives. It's nice. But it has nothing to do with forgetting Obama or his message and everything to do with being active participants in a system that does not always recognize people's contributions.