“Not because they are easy, but because they are hard”

Today is the anniversary of JFK’s famous “moon” speech. As I write this, NASA TV is re-broadcasting the speech, 50 years to the day (and minute) of the original address. Re-reading the transcript here, I’m thinking about how that same spirit can (and should) be applied to some of the big problems of our day—education, climate change, and income inequality:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.