If I Ran For President Of The United States
If I ran for President of the United States, I would have a very different platform than we typically see. It would start way upstream from typical political platforms, which usually skip right to policies and slogans. I’d have those, too, but I would start with an idea. An idea that is indisputable. An idea that is believable. And an idea that inspires and, as it does, unifies. Not unlike a “brand idea” for a company, but this idea would be for the country. I have one.
we need an idea that puts the “us” back in the USA.
Because I feel like we have lost “the idea” here in the United States. We hear a lot of talk about unifying the country while those who say it ignore half of the country. We’ve lost what used to unify us. We’ve lost what used to blind us to each other’s differences. In short, we are lost, rudderless, and without direction. So I guess it’s no surprise the political candidates we see seem random, the policies they push seem random, the protests we see seem random, everything seems random.
And I believe it’s because the country has no unifying idea by which to measure a candidate, the policies, or the protests.
So if I ran for president, that’s where I’d start.
The idea I would propose would be high level, above politics, above policy, and above even our physical requirements for living. It would be almost spiritual but not quite. On the one hand it would feel like a kick in the ass to us citizens while on the other would inspire us to willingly help each other.
the pursuit of happiness as a national mission.
I’ve always loved the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. There was a phrase in it that has always rang true to me: “the pursuit of happiness.” Being a glass-half-full guy, I always felt this phrase was more than justification for separation from England. To me it felt like the meaning of life.
The pursuit of happiness.
Try to ponder that well-known phrase as if for the first time. It’s why we get up every morning. It’s why we work hard. It’s why we start families. It’s why we make friends. It’s why we have hobbies. It’s why we travel. It’s why we practice law, medicine, and the piano. It’s why we communicate. It’s why we give. It’s why we take. It’s why we eat food. It’s why we try.
The pursuit of happiness is why we do anything in this world. We don’t always succeed, but everything we do is part of this pursuit. The pursuit, in this sense, is life.
And the outcome in this context—happiness—is self-actualization. The idea that a person who is lucky enough to identify, pursue, and then live up to his or her potential will experience the greatest feeling of happiness on Earth. Thing is, not everyone is happy pursuing the same things. That’s not a bug, in my mind. It’s a feature.
Humanity and, therefore as a subset our country, needs many different things from each other to survive. If every individual was happy pursuing the same few things, then the outcomes of these pursuits couldn’t possibly meet our collective needs. Let’s call this dynamic the “diversity of collective pursuits.” We need self-actualized plumbers, electricians, cooks, musicians, writers, insurance agents, hockey players, military folks, owners, employees, teachers, students, and everything in-between.
That said, I’m not so naive not to realize some will choose unhealthy “pursuits” to gain their own personal and temporary “hits” of happiness. These are cheat codes, honestly, that avoid the pursuit altogether and are more like self-annihilation than self-actualization. Like drugs, alcohol, abusiveness, power over others, stealing, etc. These pursuits, if they are the only pursuits of an individual, not only hurt that person in the form of lost potential, but hurt all of us because the shared fruits of a different, more beneficial pursuit are missed.
How many potential Mozarts have died of drug overdoses or been shot dead in Chicago? As such, these unhealthy pursuits should be discouraged and when they affect other people negatively (e.g. stealing) made/kept illegal.
We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. - Alan Watts
Why this “pursuit” idea is valuable to the country.
It’s easy to see why the pursuit of happiness is healthy for an individual, but for the country?
John F. Kennedy once challenged us, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Such a brilliant couple lines. He effectively asked us to reflect upon what we can do for our country, or what makes us valuable to other people. Which is only a small leap to “self-actualization” for the betterment of the country.
The brilliance of JFK’s call to action is that it also suggested that he believed in us, the people. He believed the people were the answer. He believed the people could be more and do more, and his job was to inspire such belief in ourselves. JFK clearly believed that the role of government was not to control the people, but to release them. To inspire us to soul search. To try things. To be things.
To go to the moon.
Think about it. If every citizen of the United States was their best self, imagine how much better and stronger our country would be as a whole. We’d have more inventions, more artists, more productivity, more entertainment, more of everything that makes us human. Better yet, if everyone understood this idea—as in, really understood it—we would each know it’s in our selfish interest to help others pursue their happiness.
Another citizen’s gain is suddenly perceived to be everyone’s gain.
Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What human beings can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature. This need we may call self-actualization. - Abraham Maslow
a new prism through which we view public policy.
If I ran for president and “the pursuit of happiness” were at the top of my platform, it would change how we view policy. The ills of society would be more visible, more apparent. And that’s because we’d no longer be trapping ourselves in the old agenda-laced paradigms like race and sexual orientation and gender and money and privilege. Instead, our only agenda would be to remove the barriers to any individual’s pursuit of happiness—regardless of race and sexual orientation and gender and money and privilege—and provide equal access to all the tools we can think of to increase the odds of such pursuits.
However, truly embracing the pursuit of happiness would require that we are honest with ourselves and our humanity. We’d need to start asking harder questions about ourselves than who deserves what. Like, what are the ideal conditions for a human being to thrive in full pursuit from birth to death? That’s a biggie, right? But no one talks about it. It’s as if we’ve come to believe that we are 100% products of the outside world instead of human souls loaded with potential.
If I ran for president, the first thing I would do is create a new cabinet position, the Secretary of Human Nature. This person would be responsible for understanding the latest research and theories from biology and psychology (and beyond) as to the “best conditions” for humans to thrive, and for briefing law makers regularly as our understanding advances. We’d start with Maslov’s Hierarchy Of Needs and work out from there. Public policy would be informed and inspired by these insights with the purpose of increasing the odds that all individuals will be given the chance to pursue their unique versions of happiness.
It would change how we run our schools, our prisons, our hospitals, our tax system, our government (federal, state, and local), everything.
It would influence all decisions made by the government. Will this law help people pursue their happiness? Yes or no. Will this proposed new government program help people pursue their happiness? Yes or no. Will this proposed new road open up new pursuits of happiness for our people? Yes or no.
Not all issues will be black and white like this, of course, but at least we’d have a noble idea by which to make our decisions. No more random acts of governing.
As a presidential candidate, I will not promise to fix all the problems people have. In fact, I won’t even promise happiness. No, instead I will promise to do everything in my power to enable people—all people, because all people are created equal—to be who they are, who they really are, and, if you will, who they were meant to be in this life.
Let’s make the United States a self-actualization factory.
“You may say I’m a dreamer” - John Lennon, from Imagine.
Many of you are probably rolling your eyes and thinking that I’m a dreamer. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. But one thing I know for sure is that our political system right now inspires more division than unification.
And it’s not surprising. They say to win one must divide and conquer.
If I ran for president and “pursuit of happiness” was my platform, we just might conquer division instead.
Will Burns is the Founder & CEO of the revolutionary virtual-idea-generating company, Ideasicle X. He’s an advertising veteran from such agencies as Wieden & Kennedy, Goodby Silverstein, Arnold Worldwide, and Mullen. He was a Forbes Contributor for nine years writing about creativity in modern branding. Sign up for a video consultation through my Intro Page.