Most people misunderstand Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. They see Hamlet as indecisive, melancholy and afraid to take action. They see it as a play where the suicidal lead character walks around not doing anything while people around him suffer and die. If we pay the price of a ticket, we usually want the main character to be decisive and bold; even though to take action 'against a sea of troubles' will almost certainly be fatal. We want heroes.
In my reading of the play, though, Hamlet is active and heroic. First of all, his only knowledge that his uncle/stepfather is guilty of regicide/fratricide comes from a ghost and, as Hamlet says, 'The spirit that I have seen may be the devil, and the devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape'. He needs more proof.
Hamlet, then, is not weak and melancholy, but on an intelligence gathering mission and has to do so right in front of his worst enemy, his uncle Claudius. He needs to be clever to survive, to 'play the game' a bit while he creates his plan. Once he has his proof that his uncle Claudius is guilty, he swears - and this is the turning point in the play - 'From this time forth, my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth'. He risks it all and eventually pays the price. So what does this have to do with President Obama?
I voted for President Obama, like so many others, on the hope of change, of recovery in terms of both national pride and economic policy. Like so many others I'm a little disappointed in the fact that the president hasn't been more aggressive in his administration, hasn't swung his presidential weight around more forcefully and his economic and energy policies haven't done enough to assuage a restless nation in difficult times. But maybe that's the 'Hamlet' principal at work...
President Obama may be thinking that he'll be better able to affect big changes in eight years than four. Like Hamlet, he's operating in full view of a strong opposition, and those next four years are so critical that he's willing to bide his time in light of the bigger picture to prevent anyone running a serious threat against him in 2012. But with Osama's execution we might have seen the 'preview' of this next act.
Killing Osama bin Laden is the 'my thoughts be bloody' decisiveness we need in a president in light of the current state of the world. Maybe it's the foreshadowing of a powerful 'play' after the virtual intermission of the 2012 election; the 'denouement' which will lead to decisive and sweeping action on immigration reform, 'slaying' Bush's tax cuts for the rich, aggressively prosecuting those who caused this economic disaster, and finally start us on a real road to economic reform, including gas that costs less than $4 a gallon.
Let's hope that our audacious belief in the 'change' candidate of 2008 pays off in the final scene; after all, the price of admission to this national economic tragedy has already been too high. But let's not put this all on the president and 'not keep anything for ourselves'.
This week I'm going to look at ways I'm being indecisive, things I haven't taken 100% action on, things where my thoughts have been less than 'bloody'. I'm previewing the appointments for the coming week, checking my list of 'want to' and making sure that I'm living by 'My thoughts be bloody (not literally) or be nothing worth'. I'm going to have a week of consequence, a week that matters.
You can read more about this concept of 'bloody thoughts' in my book, The Hamlet Secret, but don't wait for it to arrive in the mail before you get committed to taking action in your life, before you 'take arms against a sea of troubles', whatever they may be.