What We Live For

The other day, I suddenly remembered what a friend told me. She said that she heard the following from one of President Obama's speeches, "it's only after I had kids that I realized that everything we do is for them." - or something to that effect. 

At the time, I did not have any particularly strong feelings. In fact, there were many things that I heard before that did not strike me as hard as they do today. The entire world including me was shocked and dismayed  read about the Chinese dairy processors adding melamine to their products. Now, I simply can't bring myself to even remember that incident, as it will feel personally traumatic. 

Indeed, as President Obama astutely observed, what we do will lose all its meaning were it not for the next generation, and the ones after next.