Remember life before 9/11?

You could travel without taking off your shoes. The flight attendants would make REAL food for you on the plane. They could carve meat with a real knife, and the silverware was, well, silver!

Then it all changed.
We had to take our shoes off.
Plastic forks and knives.
Limits to what you can and cannot take on the plane.
Heightened security everywhere.

But then, relatively quickly, we saw innovations spring forth.

There was Clear.

Then, TSA Pre-Check.  (Yes, Clear was before TSA Pre-check!)

We could pay for services, both private and governmental, to help make travel “simpler” again.

We as Americans – and people all over the world – complained about all of these new “necessary” precautions.

But, just like that, we adapted, we evolved, we got stronger.

Soon, these were not big issues at all – just the baseline of normal life.

Each and every time there is a crisis, major event, or significant change in the world, we grow stronger for it, building something new together.

Look, we are living in unprecedented and unthought-of times.

Who could have ever imagined that in 2023, cars could drive themselves? That we were planning for settlements on Mars? That AI would be taking over our tech? That we would be talking about curing cancers and other major diseases?

The Jetsons and Elon Musk aside, I don’t think many people saw this coming.

What I do know is that the age-old axiom still applies more than ever: This, too, shall pass.

Despite our best efforts, things never get easier.

But we will be stronger.
We will survive.
We will thrive.

There is real power in knowing and believing that.

-J.D.