In another excerpt from his new book, Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime , Bill Gates Sr., cochair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, talks about optimism and the UN Millennium Development Goals.

Public will

Time and time again I've seen optimism triumph over pessimism.

During the Great Depression of the thirties you didn't have to be a pessimist to worry about the American dream of a better life ahead. But what we learned from those grim times is that the human spirit is resilient and that optimism and hope can trump pessimism.

After World War II the GI Bill paid for my college education, along with that of thousands of other returning soldiers. Not everyone supported the GI Bill; people were afraid that the nation couldn't afford it, and that sending ordinary Americans to college would somehow reduce the academic rigor of our universities.

History proved them wrong on all counts: Our universities were invigorated by the influx of fresh and eager minds, and growth in the nation's tax revenues, stimulated by the higher incomes of an educated citizenry, exceeded many times over the amount Americans invested in themselves through the GI Bill.

Soon after the end of World War II, the United States initiated what was called the Marshall Plan, an unprecedented program that invested many millions of dollars to help our allies -- and our former enemies -- recover from the ravages of war. The Marshall Plan is regarded as a monumental act of goodwill now, but was not universally supported at first because it was costly. The benefits from the quicker economic recovery of Europe, and the subsequent growth in world trade, far exceeded the cost. And, perhaps even more important, the United States was recognized everywhere as a strong and generous nation.

Later on, I lived through the years of what history now calls the Cold War -- through the Berlin Blockade, through the Cuban Missile Crisis, through decades of saber rattling. A third world war seemed so certain to Americans that some built backyard bomb shelters; children learned to "duck and cover" in school in the event of an atom-bomb attack; people were so afraid of a Communist plot on our shores that politicians, actors, teachers, and many others were blacklisted as Communist sympathizers. The free world triumphed in that long Cold War through the force of its ideals and values.

And one of the greatest triumphs I've seen in a lifetime is the civil rights movement, which continues today. Courageous men and women talked, and marched, and died in the cause of equal justice. The work they began is not yet complete, but their example has illuminated for all of us the endless possibilities of a society that offers all its people equal rights, equal justice, and equal opportunity.

My optimism for global progress is based on people and places I've seen around the world.

In my travels for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation I've met many people who are, in fact, changing the world -- doctors and nurses who have taken leave from practices in the developed world to bring health and hope to impoverished areas.

I've met physicians who were born in poorer countries, studied and earned their degrees in the United States, and went back home to make a difference there.

Over the years I've met legions of good people, including numerous representatives of other foundations, at work every day under difficult circumstances to reduce and eliminate poverty, to improve health, to enhance women's rights, to secure land rights for farm families, to feed the hungry.

In recent years, the work of all of those individuals and organizations has encouraged a sense of global responsibility. In September of 2000 some 147 heads of state and government gathered at the United Nations to express their determination to end extreme poverty, disease, and environmental degradation. They expressed their hope that new technologies, heightened global awareness, and increasing wealth could be applied to solve problems, and they agreed on the eight Millennium Development Goals and on target dates for reaching them. The goals are designed to promote poverty reduction, improve education, advance maternal health and gender equality, and combat child mortality, HIV/AIDS, and other diseases.

The poorer countries among those represented at the Assembly pledged to govern better and to invest in their people through health care and education. Richer countries pledged to support them through aid, debt relief, and fairer trade. For the United States, and for other developed countries, the pledge is 0.7 percent of our gross domestic product to further the Millennium Development Goals.

Pessimists take note: Who among us during the dreary years of the Great Depression, or the frightening times of the Cold War, or the most difficult days of the civil rights movement would have bet big money that 147 nations from around the world would convene, deliberate, and

then endorse a set of international development goals and set a timetable for reaching them?

I've thought a lot about historical tipping points such as this -- how events and cultures and ideas combine at just the right moment to create change.

In a democracy, and in an increasingly democratic world, I believe that the tipping force for change is something called public will. It's an abstract concept, one you can't touch, or photograph, or buy at the store.

But when important things happen, it's because the public had the will to make them happen. And when nothing happens, it's because the public isn't willing. Public will is the reason why the civil rights movement happened in the 1960s, but not in the 1940s.

Public will is the sum total of every person's individual, deliberate acts of citizenship. You join a club. You read a newspaper. You sign a petition. You write a letter. You vote. You make a contribution. You have a friendly argument. If those clubs and newspapers and petitions and letters and votes and contributions and arguments predominantly point in the same direction, that's public will.

Public will is manifest when the right thing to do becomes consensus and people generally start expressing the convictions they share in everything they do.

That's precisely what I think happened when representatives of all those nations convened to formulate the Millennium Development Goals. They did so because global public will has evolved to support such goals.

The generation that is just now taking its place in the world is increasingly aware of global events. My hope is that they will take on the cause of global equity as their challenge the way our generation took on civil rights.

Let me tell you why I believe they will.

Eight years after those countries got together and created the Millennium Development Goals a granddaughter of mine came home from school with an assignment that amazed and delighted me.

Her homework was to learn about the Millennium Development Goals.

Bill Gates Sr., a lawyer, civic activist, and philanthropist, is cochair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Excerpted from SHOWING UP FOR LIFE by Bill Gates, Sr. and Mary Ann Mackin © 2009 by Bill Gates, Sr. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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