“Hope” and the Revolutionary Act of Being a Community Member | Salome Agbaroji

When I was yea high, my hopes were way higher. Inspired by the fairy tales and princess dress attire. If you just believe, they said, everything bleak becomes beautiful. The pebbles become pearls and we all get our happy ending. But when I outgrew those glass slippers, I saw no hope on our screen. No hope in the children's dreams. As the story unfolds, more smoke unfurls, and all of a sudden, I'm that child again, tugging at the pant leg of history, asking, is there more to the story, or is happily ever after only a thing of fiction? But then I remember that the hero's journey is long and hard and only ever won in the final act, and the valiant protagonist of this epic called Earth is named Hope. But this hope isn't the idle optimist that sits on stumpy ******* pedals. Instead, we are getting our hands dirty and planting the seeds ourselves. This hope isn't wishing on a lucky star. It is imagining a future where the stars are visible in the first place. Past the clouds of CO2, we struggle seeing through this story. Women across the globe are their own knights in shining armor, or presidents, or bankers, or mothers, or farmers. Hope is a call to the unseen and a claim to what's yet to be. Hope is the hero we need. I'm not concerned with whether you call it a glass half-full or a glass half-empty. This hope is ensuring that there is clean water in that glass today, tomorrow, and every tomorrow after that. We are not kissing lucky quarters and throwing them into wishing wells. We are convening in common quarters to protect and preserve health and wellness. This is the difference between a wish and a goal. We do not seek magic potions or genies in bottles. We exercise our devotion with potential at full throttle. So with the time we have left, marvel at the mountains we've scaled. As the dragons we've slain, and remember that the sweetest victories are the ones with the buzzer-beater turnaround. When the hero, on their lowest bars of health, falls face to face with certain defeats, but with faith rises to their feet and fights on, is not the way that we cope, but the way that we conquer. So this moment and beyond, we aren't crossing our fingers, we're crossing finish lines. Let's write a finale worthy of applause, because every life on this planet has its own narrative, worthy and deserving of its own happily ever after. Hi, Rotary members. How are we feeling tonight? Or this evening? Afternoon? Time is the concept I don't subscribe to. My name is Salome Aparoji, and thank you so much, Rotary, for allowing me to share my words with a community of such dedicated changemakers and peacemakers. The piece you just heard is called Hope, a word that comes up so often as we work towards a better future But oftentimes, this word feels empty. Like the smoke in a mirror we call legacy, everything feels heavy in this moment. And with the weight of the world on our shoulders, the eggshells we walk on can't help but pierce the bottoms of our feet. So how can we feel hope when we only read of war, we read of famine, and we read of hatred? Well, two things I know is that history does not favor passivity and justice rewards those who hold it firmly in their hands, wedged tightly between the hands of their neighbors. So when you change hope from an attitude to an action, we get much closer to building the world we aspire to. This Rotary Convention is a very special moment. Here we are gathered in Taiwan a major player on the global stage for artificial intelligence and technology technological innovation for semiconductor chips. We're on the cusp of a world we haven't yet seen with the unknowable potential for AI and other breakthroughs to completely rewrite how we live, how we work, how we relate to each other as human beings for better or for worse. As a Harvard student dedicating my studies to evaluate the technological effects on society, and as a cell phone addicted Gen Z-er, it is impossible to ignore the global focus on the tech frontier. But if you ask me, I'd say media outlets and think tanks have their sights two sets on a future that may not even exist. Hundreds of millions of people are still burdened by disease, war, climate change, and more threats to prosperity. However, on the bright side, notable progress has been made. The global under five mortality rate has declined by roughly 60% since 1990. Yes. Rotary, with the World Health Organization, UNICEF and other partners have reduced polio cases by 99.9% globally. That also requires applause. So in the midst of all this good and all this progress, why do we still see so much suffering in the world? Well, that's because global inequality works harder than our Wi-Fi. As some of us reap the sweetness at the peak of this prosperity, others are left to thrive in the remnants of a forgotten time. This is the equivalent of having a pool party while your next-door neighbor dies of thirst. On our journey to the new frontier, it is imperative we do not leave our brothers and sisters behind. Just as we innovate technologically, we must innovate new paths to global peace. Just as we learned in science class that nuclear fusion produces huge amounts of energy, can we not hold our microscope to the small cracks in our communities and find a way to fuse the broken pieces? You, Rotary members, are the scientists and engineers of the small social revolution that achieve great and measurable good. As the seventh national youth poet laureate of the United States, I have had the honor to lend my voice to amazing spaces like this and similar forums like the United Nations and the World Economic Forum. I am consistently amazed by the brilliance of the leaders and innovators that make my acquaintance. I also find myself on smaller but equally important stages, like high school classrooms and public libraries, giving back to the community. As a poet and speaker, only 10% of my work is done on a stage like this. You might ask, what's the other 90%? Well, the other 90% are the conversations I have in my everyday life. So when I urge policy makers to make multilateral peace agreements, when I am encouraging the young girl in the library to believe in herself, when I speak about people, I am talking about more than just statistics and figures on a quarterly report. I'm talking about real relationships that find a place in my heart even before the poetic words leave my mouth. The Rotary family is adorned with so much diversity. You may be a sustainable farmer, or a CEO of a nonprofit, an economic policy advisor, an environmentalist, or for now, just a curious observer. That is your 10%. The grant applications, I know you all know way too well. The spreadsheets, the daily deeds, and the goal setting. But the 90% is when you are a Rotary member in every single room you enter, which means you are a lifelong community member and solution seeker. This spirit of community through conversation is exactly what you all have embraced with mastery each day of this Rotary convention. You've taken the time to learn from each other, possibly civically disagree and talk about it later at your hotels, and dared to be changed because of it to achieve the common goal of a better world. This is why the Rotary causes are so important. For Rotary members, people are not the periphery. People are the principle, the purpose. So as you leave this convention and go back to serving your communities, I ask you, what is your 90? How does your life beyond the boardroom support the work you've committed your professional lives to? And remember that the future is in ours to enjoy without the effort we make today to actively shape it. Thank you so much.