Waging A War is
destructive.
Duh, right?
I graduated from
high school in 1972 and our country was in the midst of the Vietnam War. There was
political upheaval over whether or not we should have been involved in the
first place. I remember that it was the first televised war. The network news
showed battles raging and reported losses on the six o’clock news. The war
brought about conflict between the right and the left and between hawks and
doves. There were even battles that were waged within households.
My brother, Jim,
served, and it was tense for us. I was eighteen and my draft number was 25. I
was scared. By all rights, I should have been drafted but I was exempted due to
allergies and asthma. It was a scary time all around, and not just for me.
War destroys. War
destroys homes and property. Countries are at odds and torn apart from within
and from without.
War destroys
people. People die. People get hurt. Families are torn apart. There is civilian
loss- collateral damage, I guess is the political, sanitized term that is used.
And after all of
that, there is the War in the mind. Men and women who cannot make sense of it
all, who cannot come to terms with it.
But I want to
talk about a different kind of War. I want to talk about a type of War that
harms us, not so much from without as much as it comes from within. I think each of us Wages A War with ourselves.
We consider
ourselves unworthy. We consider ourselves not good enough. We consider
ourselves unlovable and much to our detriment, unworthy of love. And as a result,
we don’t, forgive ourselves . . . perhaps cannot forgive ourselves.
We dwell on past
failures and use these failures as the measuring stick by which we live our
lives. We look back and consider all the things that were done to us, all the
things that we did to ourselves or to others, all the things we should have
done or shouldn’t have done for ourselves or for others.
We become
enslaved by our thoughts and each word, each action is a result of the War we
Wage on ourselves.
Perhaps it’s
time to take a cease fire and consider that we don’t need to measure our lives
by what we’ve done or said or not done or not said in the past. Perhaps it’s
time to admit that who we once were is not who we are right now. Perhaps it’s
time to move out of the past and into the present, and with an eye on the
future. Because it is only by moving from the past to the present that we can
truly live in the future. In essence, move on!
When I deal with
kids who have been in trouble, I usually tell them that once the door opens,
life goes on. I consider the matter, no matter what it was, over and done. A
mistake was made and we learn from it and then we move on.
So, why is it so
hard to make that admission to ourselves? Why is it so hard to admit a mistake
was made, that we need to learn from it and then move on from it? Why do we
continue to use that mistake to harm or injure ourselves and continue Waging A
War with ourselves- much to our own detriment? Hmmm . . . something to think
about . . .
Live Your Life,
and Make A Difference!
To My Readers:
If you like
thriller and mystery fiction, please check out these four books. Each come with
excellent ratings from those who have read them.
Book One, Stolen Lives:
Two thirteen
year old boys are abducted off a safe suburban street. Kelliher and his team of
FBI agents have 24 hours to find them or they’ll end up like all the others-
dead! They have no leads, no clues, and nothing to go on. And the possibility
exists that one of his team members might be involved.
Book Two, Shattered Lives:
Six men escaped
and are out for revenge. The boys, recently freed from captivity, are in danger
and so are their families, but they don’t know it. The FBI has no clues, no
leads, and nothing to go on and because of that, cannot protect them.
Book Three, Splintered Lives:
It began in
Arizona and it ends in Arizona- in death. A 14 year old boy has a price on his
head, but he and his family don’t know it. Their vacation turns into a trip to
hell. Out gunned and outnumbered, can this boy protect his father and brothers?
Without knowing who these men are? Or how many there are? Or when they might
come for him?
Lives Trilogy Prequel, Taking Lives:
FBI Agent Pete
Kelliher and his partner search for the clues behind the bodies of six boys
left in various and remote parts of the country. Even though they don’t know
one another, the lives of FBI Kelliher, 11 year old Brett McGovern, and 11 year
old George Tokay are separate pieces of a puzzle. The two boys become
interwoven with the same thread that Pete Kelliher holds in his hand. The three
of them are on a collision course and when that happens, their lives are in
jeopardy as each search for a way out.
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Thank you for your comment. I welcome your thought. Joe