A Peaceful canadian
I was sitting on a snow bank in Meaford around 2:30 am on a cold December night. It was an artillery gun exercise in the dead of winter, and I found myself all alone in the world, sitting by the road on sentry duty. I was a Bombadier then, and while nobody else really knew it, I was struggling greatly to figure out who I was (like many of us do when we’re young). That night I remember how incredible the sky was. The Milky Way stretched across the horizon and the stars lit up the night. Everything was blanketed in white, and the silence was profound. I remember staring at the night sky for a time, and then all of a sudden, a random thought struck me like a lightning bolt. What the hell am I doing here? The thought pierced my skull and unsettled me greatly.
Since that time a lot happened to me (including leaving Canada and the Forces to live and work abroad), but that moment was irrevocably the start of the journey. I look forward at the road ahead. There are endless intersecting pathways and forks in the road, any of which can drastically alter my fate. It’s so easy to make a wrong turn, and I have. Many times. However, just as much as I continued to stumble and fall along the way, it was in those moments of failure and aimlessness that I found what could only be described as clarity of mind, and it’s the revelations within such moments I look to address.
THE MIRROR
Identity was something I went in search of for a very long time, and I couldn’t find what I was looking for simply because I didn’t have the right attitude. Being a spoiled child raised in first world affluence leads very easily to an entitled and short-sighted perspective of the world which is primarily based in endless consumption. Selfishness, greed and mental weakness are the outcomes of such behaviour, and it’s easy to fall into the slavery of a victim mindset where nothing that happens to us is ever our fault or responsibility. It’s the system. It’s rigged from the start. We are but slaves to the algorithm and nothing we do matters. It is endemic, and these days it seems like it’s spiraling out of control (rabbit hole for another day). Maybe we can blame our leaders and say they set the example for the rest of us, but that still doesn’t put forth any solutions as to what we can do to break free of it, particularly if nothing changes and we are never exposed to something better. What then, can be done to wake people from their slumber?
This is a hard question, and the longer one stays within that realm, the harder it is to escape. But escape is possible - it just requires a lot of work. There are revelations that can only manifest out of a firm decision to attempt real challenges beyond what we are comfortable with, and it is these experiences that define and sharpen those who seek to better themselves in life. It can be any challenge or ambition that has the potential to ignite the desire for discipline and the drive to achieve ones goals — values that many brave people risk their mental and physical health to attain and exemplify every day.
MORTAL REALITIES
From my experience, most army reservists will never have to worry about dying in service to Country, but they are likewise trained to understand the importance of Unlimited Liability — the conscious choice to follow the commands given to them regardless of their personal opinions, knowing the outcome may be what it may. Ultimately, it is the full and sobering realization that no matter how much we can try, we will not live forever. Memento Mori. The only thing we can do is make the most of the time we have left and understand the profound consequences of wasting it away in consumption, leisure and entertainment. While this may mean many things to many people (and not to say that anyone who consumes is in the wrong, as rest is also critical for one’s well being), to me it means that we shouldn’t be wasting too much of our time doing things that add no value to our lives, because ultimately nothing in this world is truly about us. It is about helping and serving others — those less fortunate perhaps, or those who suffer from the same illnesses borne of first-world boredom, aimlessness and apathy. A deep understanding of others and a heart of service are some of the primary prerequisites for developing effective leadership qualities. This, to me anyways, is what it means to be a person of competent integrity, and at the highest level it is a quality worth protecting and imparting unto others.
PERSISTENCE
While it is certainly easy to write about inspiration and idealism at its potential, execution is another animal altogether, and I know for certain that I fall so very short of living up to the very ideals espoused above. Everyone has their own responsibilities and sacrifices that must be made on a daily basis, and nobody really has a right to tell you how you should live your life. But the value in failure lies in the individual efforts made to continue moving forward in the face of adversity. Who we will become in the pursuit of our dreams is incomparable to the person we would end up as had we never tried at all; had we given up and accepted what happens to us as fate, as if we were never in control of our lives to begin with. It is crystal clear we can’t control all the circumstances we find ourselves in, but we can control how we react to them by being aware of the energy in our environment. How we choose to perceive hardships, challenges and obstacles is paramount to what we become in the face of such adversity, and the point is to decide for ourselves what our reality will be.
In the end, I still have much to learn and more to grow, and I can only speculate at what occurs at higher stations in life. It doesn’t escape me that I still have yet to experience a lot of what this gracious life has to offer. But I haven’t reached the end of my story, and chances are neither have you. While I don’t know what tomorrow may bring, I do know that I am confident enough to tackle challenges head on and accept whatever consequences my decisions may carry. Thinking back on that night once upon a time, I know I have chosen the right path for myself regardless of how long it took me to get here; right now, in this moment. Sometimes, second chances exist, and the struggles I faced on my path merely reaffirmed and crystallized what I had hoped to realize in all my youthful days staring at the night skies on those cold winter nights — a sense of purpose and identity. I am a Peaceful Canadian. In a time of great chaos and disorder — of war and greed; deceit and pandemics — at the very least it is something of value worth living and fighting to defend until the end.
- Alexander J.