"I burned out, not just from a political point of view, but from a spiritual point of view, on a lot of my earlier positions. You go around and try to get people worked up about how oppressed they are, and how terrible the system is, and if you're successful, you just manage to make people more angry, depressed, and frustrated. I could talk with you for hours about everything I was against, but I couldn't say anything I was for. At a certain point, if you're going to do this kind of work, 12- and 18-hour days with some of the poorest people in the country, who have the toughest problems, you have to know what you're working for, not just what you're working against.

I felt unable to sustain the level of anger that some of those positions required. I felt, in my own life, the need for hope and inspiration and solutions. So I kind of switched from diesel to solar. It was in that journey that I discovered practical, green business solutions. I discovered that I could do a better job describing what I was for." - Van Jones in part two of a two-part interview he gave to Grist recently.

In the interview Jones reflects, for what he says is the last time, about his unfortunate political fate and looks forward to a life outside of politics where he says,  "I have more freedom to take on tougher causes and make more challenging connections."

Read Part One HERE and part Two HERE.

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