Following the Monday Presidents’ Day holiday and our Mentorship theme of Heart, I wondered which presidents would be good role models for caring. Especially after leaving the presidency, how did they live their lives? Getting past politics, which presidents showed caring? I’d have to say President Carter with his Habitat for Humanity foundation shows caring. What you do you think?

It’s hard to really know, if not impossible to know, what’s in a  person’s heart, what kind of person they really are. Public people, it’s their job to appear in a good way, but who knows what they’re really like behind closed doors. High public office doesn’t always go to the “best” person and it can be a real struggle for someone to survive the experience with their integrity intact. But you look over the long course of someone’s life, the failures and successes and just how they carry themselves over the long journey, and even if you don’t agree with what they did in office, you can say, that this is a good person. Of the presidents I’ve witnessed over my lifetime, Jimmy Carter still comes off as the most genuine, caring person. 

It’s almost a no-win situation, the office of the presidency. And Americans tend to want their messiah so badly and because winning is so important, we’ve made too many compromises. It’s almost as if, if you aspire to such an office, that should automatically disqualify you because it’s an irrational thing to want… A good (rational) person wouldn’t want the responsibility. So, when I think of people of good heart and the presidency, I think of Jimmy Carter’s short stay in the office. 

How about you, when you think of people of good heart and the presidency, who do you feel survived the experience intact? 

Image Source: Good People Doing Good Things: Habitat for Humanity and Jimmy Carter, https://jilldennison.com/2017/07/12/good-people-doing-good-things-habitat-for-humanity-and-jimmy-carter/