The Middle

"I prefer peace.  But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace."  - Thomas Paine

            As I look at history and the events that continue to unfold today, you almost spot recycled human tendencies.  This encompasses everything from conflicts, terrorism, to tyranny, in every sense of the word. 

Wars have happened throughout this planet’s history. Atrocities like genocide have taken place.  We know of them.  Many have stared these evils directly in the face.  We know events like these are wrong, and if men and women are inherently good at heart, no person would ever wish these events to their fellow human beings, whether in their current time or generations thereafter. 

History is the mother of all teachers.  But more often than not, her lessons fall upon deaf ears.

So with the world in its current state, the real question beckons us:  How far have we really come?  I personally refuse to believe that this planet is a broken record.  It may be naïve to think otherwise, especially when presented with the facts.  But it may also be naïve to think we can ever become a full utopian society.  So if we re-shift our thinking and our perspective, maybe we can understand a crucial idea.  Whether it is in the grand scheme of things or in our individual lives, it’s that we need to find the middle ground.

Sometimes we need to take 1 step back, in order to move 3 steps forward.  But the world need not take any additional un-needed steps back.  And those additional steps back would be following through with extremes as fighting, killing and war. The face of war is now capably violent, none as history has ever seen before, exponentially increasing the importance of mitigating the recklessness of potentially entering conflict.  Yes, it will never be a perfect world.  But that doesn’t mean it has to be a terrible world either.  Achieving the middle ground and sustaining it without destroying it, is the closest thing we’ll ever get to having heaven on earth. 

Re-shifting perspective will help towards ultimately achieving world peace.  Achievement will not happen overnight, but it will happen.

Let’s not look at life as the ‘roses with the thorns,’ but rather in the lens of the ‘thorns with the roses.’