We are people to whom much is given. We are able,
healthy, successful people, blessed with privilege, opportunity, and
intelligence. For ourselves and for our children, the future looks like a
promise.
Against this background of optimism, our age, if it is to
deliver on its promise, will need people deeply committed to the truth, to what
works, to what is real. This age demands of us the courage, the dignity, and
the integrity to generate behavior beyond what is merely strategic, beyond
what, according to the standards of the opinion makers of the day is wise and
reasonable.
Our age, if it is to deliver on its promise, needs people
capable of real heroism -- not the kind of heroism which ends up in glory --
but the kind which ends up bringing out and making available the truth, what
works, what is honest and real.
Our age, if it is to deliver on its promise, needs people
who can reach beyond that which is already determined, that which is already
predictable, that which can already be expected, and take the lead in creating
new possibility.
The demands of this age are extraordinary: to meet them,
extraordinary men and women are required. There is no reason, no motivation, no
"reward" for which these people -- and you and I -- will make this age succeed. There is just our
humanity -- and the stand that we are. "Of those to whom much is given,
much is required.
Werner Erhard
