Courage

War and forgiveness. The two concepts seem mutually exclusive, don't they? How can they have anything to do with each other? We're told that we're at war, and that to win a war we must be resolute, we must be stalwart and certain of the righteousness of our cause, and we must be clear about our purpose, which is to defeat the enemy. I don't see how I can disagree with this set of assertions, which rest in turn on a set of assumptions based on a number of certainties about the way the world is shaped. Assuming there are some incorrigibly evil people out there in the jungle or desert or concrete canyon or wherever who hate me for some inexplicable reasons of their own and wish to act on their hatred by threatening my survival and my family and friends, then I would be utterly stupid not to try to kill them before they succeed in killing me. Forgiveness really doesn't enter this picture, except maybe after I've killed those evil people, and then only as a practical afterthought, with the purpose of helping myself to sleep better at night.

It strikes me, however, that this is the logic of the battlefield. From the point of view of survival for a soldier, it makes perfect sense to adopt such black-and-white categories. You take them out or they will take you out. Simple as that. Part of the problem, of course, in a place like Iraq, is that it is so difficult to know who the enemy is. Who do you target in order to remain alive? Who do you kill in order to protect yourself, defend the lives of your buddies, complete your deployment, and return to your family? Is it that 12-year-old kid aiming that AK-47 at your head on a street in Mosul, or is it that teenage girl with a suicide vest strapped to her body beneath her robe as she meanders up to a checkpoint, or is it the nameless, faceless murderer who staged a car bomb at the side of the road to be triggered by a lethal call to a cell phone as your Stryker vehicle trundles past, or is it a black-turbaned mullah in a Baghdad neighborhood exhorting a gathering of desperately poor and terminally unemployed youth to drive the American occupiers out of their country with all available blood and firepower?

Psychologist Robert Jay Lifton created the phrase "atrocity-creating situation” during the Vietnam War, and uses it to describe a “counterinsurgency war in which U.S. soldiers, despite their extraordinary firepower, feel extremely vulnerable in a hostile environment,” amplified by “the great difficulty of tracking down or even recognizing the enemy.”  The built-in logic of being deployed to a place like Iraq during the current conflict seems tailor-made to confront soldiers with morally complex choices in ambiguous circumstances. Who do we blame when things go wrong and noncombatant civilians are killed? Who do we hold accountable when a soldier inadvertently sheds innocent blood in the midst of a firefight?  Even more troubling, who is guilty of criminal misconduct when a soldier who has been told that "Islam is evil" commits an act of murder or rape, mayhem, torture or brutality against a randomly-selected civilian in a Muslim country?

Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of the war itself, quite apart from whether it was smart or stupid, honorable or duplicitous, just or unjust to invade Iraq in the first place, no matter whether Saddam had or did not have weapons of mass destruction, it seems clear that prominent among the victims of the war will be tens and hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the US military.

Veterans will be paying the price for the service they undertook voluntarily, on behalf of the rest of us, for many decades to come. That price will be counted in millions of nightmares and wasted days, in broken marriages and orphaned children, in depression, alcoholism and suicide, in homelessness and poverty, in crushed hopes and failed dreams.

Is it possible that an alternative logic is available to those of us who have the luxury of not finding ourselves on a battlefield? At the risk of somebody calling me a fool -- a charge that would doubtless be well-deserved -- I'd like to propose a little mental exercise. Please join me in considering the words of General David Petraeus, current US commander in Iraq, quoted on March 8th of 2007 shortly after assuming his new position: "There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq."

I wonder if it might help us to search for the non-military solutions Petraeus implies are essential if we found a way to use the non-military technique of listening to our enemies? If Petraeus is right, we will have to expend a lot more energy and resources in conversing with those whom we have deemed enemies than in destroying them.

And if so, that old-fashioned notion of forgiveness will come in handy. After all, it's hard to engage in a sincere and mutual search for peaceful solutions if you haven't forgiven your conversation partner -- your sworn enemy -- in advance of the conversation.

As compassion deepens, we find ourselves developing a nobility of the heart. Increasingly, and often to our surprise, we respond to difficult situations with calmness, clarity and directness. A quiet fearlessness or confidence is present as we no longer fear that we will compromise our own integrity. We find, too, a joy, a joy which arises from the knowledge that our every act is meaningful and helpful to the world.

When I was in grade 4, I very seriously (yet with great excitement) told my teacher, “I’m going to be a writer when I grow up.” I expected him to mirror back my enthusiasm with “great”, or “way to go”. Instead, he replied, “there’s no money in that. You’ll end up starving.” It was like a huge pin being stuck in my birthday balloon. I was instantly deflated.

1. It’s Very Narrow and Closed Minded
To say for anything, “there’s no money in that” is a mistake. If everyone believed that there would be no Stephen Kings, no Joanne Harris’ (one of my favourite writers right now, she wrote Blackberry Wine), no Shakespeare. There would be no writers at all. These people didn’t listen to anyone and it led them to their success. Take a look at the stories on the Inspirational Page, the majority of these now famous people, at one time had to ignore the people who said they couldn’t do it for some reason or that it was just a bad idea.

2. There’s Always More Than One Option
If there's something you absolutely love doing, there will be numerous options of what you can accomplish with it. Take writing. My teacher instantly assumed I meant I wanted to be a novelist. But, there are so many other forms of writing. If there were no writers (because we all believed it was a bad career choice) there would be no movies, no t.v. shows, no newspapers or magazines, no speeches, no advertisements, no instruction manuals, and there wouldn’t be a description on the back of the movie box you want to rent from your local video store. A novelist is just one tiny part of the whole writing world. That’s the way it is with any passion. You will find that can use it in so many different ways. As you explore your interest, you open new and exciting doors for yourself. We also have no idea what technology will bring us in the future. My grade 4 instructor had no idea that the internet would even exist at some point in the future and that this would be another avenue for “writers”.

3. Money is Not the Right Focus
One time when I was visiting Hawaii, I went through a little market that had been set up in a parking lot. There was one stall that stood out for me. It had beautiful silver jewellery. I bought one of the bracelets and with talking with the artist, she told me she was really a lawyer. But, that she’d never really enjoyed it and had suddenly decided to follow her passion for making silver jewellery. The joy and enthusiasm from this lady was amazing. Yes, she’d given up a pretty much guaranteed good salary but she was so much happier now. She said everyone had told her she was crazy for what she was doing. She continued on that she’d just gotten her jewellery into a local boutique and her sales were taking off. By following her passion, she was still going to be able to make a “good” living yet enjoy her life so much more than doing what was “expected” of her.

Think about it, which would you rather be, the person who is just glowing from loving life or the person who has a "good" job but hates it?

Too many people are stopped in their tracks because they’re told there’s not enough money in a particular field. So, instead they choose to be lawyers or doctors or something else where there’s supposed to be money for your efforts. Too often though the person ends up with that career but not happy. Money cannot bring you happiness. If you follow your passion, the money will come. You will probably be far happier even if you are making less than spending your whole life in a job that does not fulfill you.

4. You’re Letting Someone Else Make Your Life Decision For You
We all have destinies or things we want to explore in our time on this earth. By listening to these comments, we are letting someone else tell us how we should live our life. Resentment, frustration, and always that feeling that “maybe if you’d tried” will most likely be the final result. Or you will always feel somewhat unfulfilled. You may have a new career but you’ll always wonder or feel like there’s something you should have done. You are the only one who knows what you really have an interest in. You owe it to yourself to follow what brings you fulfillment and joy. Isn’t that what life is for?

Society loves to tell us how to live our lives and what’s best for us but we’re the only ones that truly know what is the true path we’re supposed to follow. Don’t ever let the myths deter you. Dig deep down inside you, recall those dreams of the past and follow your passion. You’ll never regret it.