In his election-day speech, President Obama urged those with power to “do our business in the light of day.”  This sentiment sang out to me, not only as a citizen looking to once again put faith and trust into a government rife with corruption and deception, but as a young businesswoman attempting to prove that a capitalistic enterprise can also be a compassionate one.

In thinking about, planning, and now constructing my business over the past months, transparency has been a word I often find myself gravitating toward.  It is my goal to have an operation that needs no veil.  I am young and unseasoned and am bound to make errors, but I strive for those to be the errors of inexperience, not greed, abuse, or dishonesty.

I had an interesting conversation about cruelty and the abuse of power and resources with a friend of mine yesterday evening that has continued to disturb me.  He described for me a group of people, commodities traders, who in their great fiscal success or perhaps inborn nature are seemingly devoid of compassion and empathy for others.  It was my friend’s hypothesis that this behavior, greedy and abhorrent, is our human nature, unchecked and unchallenged.  That as a capitalistic society we have not only allowed for, but encouraged such selfishness.

As I sat here today making jewelry and preparing for my upcoming photo shoot, I continued to mull over this conversation and wondered how such enormous financial success could enable this ultra-competitive, ruthless behavior.  I had a hard time believing that a person with more money than he could possibly spend in a lifetime would not help someone who is suffering now because he sees no economic advantage in it.  In my disorienting disbelief, I had the sinking feeling that perhaps that is human nature and I am naive to think otherwise.

The more I thought about humans as animals, the more our distinguishing characteristics came to light.  It was not so much our intelligence, complex languages, or digital dexterity, but our ability to adapt and change that stood out to me.  We are able to see a problem, a fault in our behavior, a flaw in our philosophy and make an adjustment.  Indeed, we are driven by our animalistic instincts and innate urges, but we also have the ability, creativity, and desire to alter that destiny.

As a nation, we have made an incredible and great adjustment in electing Barack Obama to our highest office.  This great alteration in the fabric of our country’s nature,  that started with small and individual hopes for change, has now in turn itself become an emblem of hope, a source of pride, and an unsinkable example of the power of democracy as a tool for progress.

I see this time in our country’s hisory, as we stand ankle deep in a dark ocean of economic debt and uncertainty, as an opportunity and a great challenge to continue to alter our course as a nation and to improve ourselves as human beings.  I feel hopeful, not because I am ignorant of the fact that this is an unfortunate time to launch a business, but because, in this country, I have the opportunity to create my own business.  I have the freedom to run my business in any manner I see fit and I am making the conscious choice to create an organization that will not only be profitable, but socially responsible.

I cannot make anyone join me, I can only hope I am not alone.