Thank you.\u00a0 In just one day you were able to save a damsel in distress, put The Riddler behind bars, and finally stop The Penguin\u2019s reign of terror over Gotham.\u00a0 Those feats alone would have been worthy of my praise, but that is not why I felt compelled to pen this letter.\u00a0 Your courage and spirit did something else that day. Your story, if only for a brief moment, restored my faith in humanity.<\/p>\n
I must confess that I have become a bit grumpy and cynical over the past 41 years, just ask my wife and two children.\u00a0 In case you doubt just how crotchety I have become, my nickname is \u201cThe Grunch\u201d (which is what The Grinch would call someone who truly<\/span> doesn\u2019t like Christmas). On cue, I could give you hundreds of examples of why the human race\u00a0is doomed; overpopulation, commercialization, violence, unemployment, religion, greed, terrorism, hunger, and selfishness.\u00a0 I am convinced that it is only a matter of time before Mother Earth gives the old Etch-a-Sketch a shake so she can start all over again, hoping to get it right the next time.<\/p>\n But then I watched as thousands of people came together with the sole purpose of making you feel special.\u00a0 It was totally selfless.\u00a0 Then it started to spread.\u00a0 In the most literal sense, your videos went viral, infecting millions around the world with positive energy and hope.\u00a0 All of a sudden, we felt just how different things could be.<\/p>\n So I started to think, what if there was a way to sustain that positive energy.\u00a0 What if we could expand the whole Make-a-Wish concept?\u00a0 For example, a recent study issued by Brown University\u2019s Eisenhower Research Project estimates the total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will top $4 trillion.\u00a0 They also estimate that 330,000 people have died in those conflicts, with just as many, if not more, permanently injured.\u00a0 How different would the world be if simply chose to allocate those funds elsewhere?<\/p>\n Imagine if we had given that same\u00a0$4 trillion to the Department of Wishes (DOW) instead of the Department of Defense.\u00a0 With that kind of money they could dispense $100,000 wishes to 40 million kids throughout the world.\u00a0 And just like your experience, those wishes would touch the lives of everyone\u00a0around them.\u00a0 We could literally infect hundreds of millions of people with the same positive energy and hope that you made us feel.<\/p>\n And there would be other benefits too.\u00a0 While I am certainly no foreign policy expert, I am pretty sure that granting a wish to a child is some remote village in Afghanistan would win the \u201cWar on Terrorism\u201d a lot faster than blowing him up in a drone strike.\u00a0 Kind of hard to hate America if the DOW just granted your kid a wish.\u00a0 It might sound crazy, but it really wouldn\u2019t be that hard to do.\u00a0 Seriously, I think it is infinitely harder to manage all of the unintended consequences of the military-industrial complex than it would be to simply hand out money to people in need.<\/p>\n Look, I don\u2019t want to oversell the whole \u201cyou restored my faith in humanity\u201d statement.\u00a0 If I am being honest, it lasted all of about 30 seconds.\u00a0 What can I say, I\u2019m a Grunch.\u00a0 My only hope is that your beautiful story touched someone, somewhere, who will choose to make a difference. Someone who will just decide to do things differently.\u00a0 Part of me really wants to believe that the first Secretary of Wishes just finished watching your video on YouTube.<\/p>\n Respectfully yours,<\/p>\n Brian<\/p>\nShare this:<\/h3>