Four years of divisive leadership —at the top— comes to an end.

"United we stand. Divided we fall." - John Dickinson

Will we, as a society, be willing to—this time—take advantage?

Today, I bore witness to an unrivaled outpouring of joy, and what could probably more accurately categorized as relief here in my Upper West Side neighborhood in New York. We had all just heard the news that Joe Biden had been announced by major news outlets as the projected winner of the U.S. Presidential election of 2020, defeating the New Yorker, our incumbent President.

I was hard at work in my office when I started to hear a familiar sound from outside our windows. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic's early days in New York, each night at 7 pm, the neighborhood New Yorkers (and all around the city for that matter) would open their windows, making lots of noise in support of our front-line workers in the fight against the disease. Today, I heard some of those familiar sounds in the distance and I immediately knew—well, I immediately hoped I knew—what the fuss was all about. I opened a web browser. "Presidential election results 2020," I typed into Google. 290. Biden had won.

I ran out with the laptop and showed Sharon. We flung our windows open and began our own noise making. In turn, our neighbors heard us (probably also Googled) and joined in. It became a symphony of sound, spreading through the neighborhood buildings for many minutes. I finally decided to go downstairs and see if the celebrations had spilled into the streets.

They had.

First dozens. Then hundreds.

This is the time for Americans from all walks of life, racial & socioeconomic backgrounds, and belief systems to come together to tackle the extraordinary challenges we collectively face. We have had leadership and media that has sought to divide us, to fan the flames of dissent, to use our differences against us. Our differences, however, are what make America great. And, we're all literally in the same little boat, floating in the ether.

We are our differences. Without the diversity of the American people, we would not have reached the pinnacles of our greatest achievements. We would not have earned our independence from then tyrannical England. We would not have built a nation that at one time was the envy of the world for our infrastructure. We would not have defeated the forces of evil in not one but two major world wars. We would not have landed on the moon, or have even reached space. We wouldn't have Jazz. Motown. Punk. The Beatles. Beyonce or Jay Z. There are too many stories of how our diversity has emboldened, empowered, and accelerated our progress to count. Our world is more beautiful with all of us in it. Have you ever seen a beautiful monochromatic sunset?

Empathy is perhaps the keystone in the bridge that connects us. We must start to listen to and understand one another, no matter the difficulty. It isn't easy to connect deeply with people who hold views we simply cannot understand, but this is exactly the point: not to work to change a perspective but instead to understand it. Only when we can deeply understand someone else and commingle their perspectives with ours and our life experiences do we find common ground and solutions that help the many. This is the power of diversity. You possess insights through the accumulation of your life's experiences that will be revelations to me and mine to you. This societal soup is difficult to make even for the most committed, but it's also just so worth it.

We are better together. We are. When we open our hearts, and our minds, stand shoulder to shoulder, and do the good work—the important work—there is nothing we cannot achieve.