The most common way that people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.
Life has so many rules and regulations to it. It's easy to feel powerless. Powerless to make more money, powerless to change one's circumstances. Powerless to make changes on a community level, or even a national one. Powerless to take Gandhi's mantra to heart, and to be the change that we wish to see in the world.
Booker's words are designed to remind us that as "ordinary people" we have a great deal of power because every four years we have the power to change the government of the most powerful nation in the world; we vote. Voting is a citizen's way of exercising power. We being this voting life as children; we vote for our class presidents, student council representatives, prom queens. We vote so often that we don't even realize that it is a form of power, but it is, because it gives us the ability to say who we want to steer us into the future, and the direction that we would like that future to take. Booker believes that by failing to see voting as a form of power, people remain powerless, and stuck in the situation they are looking to escape.
If you are one of those stubborn people who every time you open your eyes you see hope, you see opportunity, possibility, you see love or the face of God, then you can be someone who helps me.
You are what you eat. How many times have we been told that when we gain a few pounds, and realize that we have over done it with the Halloween candy when it isn't even Halloween yet? If we are overweight it is because we have eaten unwisely, our physical appearance being the result of our internal choices.
This quote is very much like that, except instead of relating to our physicality it relates to our thought processes and the way in which we choose to view the world. It agrees with the theory first put forward in the bestselling book The Secret, which contends that whatever we focus on is what we will manifest in our lives. Booker's story tells us that if we see the world as mean, frightening and lacking in opportunity then that is how it will be; but if we see it as a manifestation of God's love on earth, as a place of opportunity, where all things are possible if we make an effort, then the result will be far more positive. It is also a quote that suggests we should not put our happiness in the hands of others, but should strive to create the world we want for ourselves.
