Weekly Updates
We're at the beginning—a New Year filled with new opportunities—and I've been thinking a lot about my priorities. When I consider the challenges we're facing at home and abroad, I can see how it might be easy to get bogged down in the details. But I want to rise above that for a moment. If I've learned anything from my time as a public servant, it's that our greatest resource and our best hope for overcoming even the toughest challenges is our people. Our forefathers knew that progress isn't about government; it's about the men and women who strive to make the world a better place.
It's hard to believe that the year is coming to an end, and in just a few weeks, we'll be celebrating the start of a new one. We're right in the middle of resolution season, and I've been thinking a lot about mine. Those of us who have broken resolutions before—and with my wife Kathryn's delicious cooking, I've broken a few—know that change is impossible without action. I've heard it said that faith plus action equals success. We can't daydream our way into change. It takes effort.
"Are they dead that speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal language? Are they dead that yet act?"
Sebastian Junger, a journalist and documentary film-maker who spent a year in Afghanistan embedded with a platoon in the Korengal Valley (once considered the deadliest valley in the country) made an important observation about war. He said that "the core reality of war isn't that you might get killed out there, it's that you're guaranteed to lose your brothers."
As children, many of us were told the story of the grasshopper and the ant, and most of us probably know it well. During summer, when the days were warm and it was hard to imagine winter's famine, the grasshopper rested and played while the ant was hard at work gathering food for scarcer times. When the winter did finally come, the grasshopper found himself starving while the ant and his friends ate heartily from the store they had collected months before. It isn't difficult to see how that children's fable carries over into adult life. We all know that days of necessity are coming.
During these past couple of weeks, I have been thinking a lot about leadership and what it means to be a leader. According to Douglas MacArthur, leadership is about integrity. "A true leader," he said, "has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent." As individuals, we aspire to live up to that standard every day, but what does that look like for countries operating in a global environment?
Folks,
From Prince William County to Hampton Roads, I serve some of the strongest communities in the Commonwealth, and I am humbled every day to work for the people of Virginia's First District. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, I truly believe that my primary responsibility is to represent the interests of the men and women who've elected me, and I can only do that with your continued input and feedback.