Building Armies

Life is an interesting adventure. There is so much that every person is going through (externally and internally, financially and spiritually, relationship wise and personal exploration). We often become so engulfed with the things that we are personally dealing with that we forget that everyone around us is battling their own war.

The unfortunate thing about the society humans have built, at least in the United States, is that we demand you to go to war by yourself. We are taught and encouraged to keep our emotions to ourselves, our demons to ourselves, our battles to ourselves. So, with that, we are left to face them all on our own.

It's interesting how a society who is so gung-ho on large armies in preparation for a future war, is so discouraging of building armies for wars that are actually going on everyday. Even if these wars are just in our minds, they are more real, more tangible, more palpable than these wars that we prepare for everyday, yet we do nothing about them.

Many people go about their days, their demons screaming from every corner of their minds, and act like everything is fine. They put on a front, the most common being a friendly smile, and act like everything is fine. People ask them how they're doing, their souls scream out for help, but their lips say they're fine. It's fine. Everything is fine. I'm fine.

Then, after a long and exhausting day, they return home and are left to face the demons on their own. During the day, while they were smiling and repeating just how fine they were, the demons were building bunkers. They were making war plans. They built machinery. They trained. They filled every inch of your mind with an army that is ready to do whatever it takes for victory.

All the while, your army didn't increase at all. All you are left with is your mind. Your exhausted mind. Your mind that just spent the entire day acting like it was fine. Your mind that only wants rest, so that it could rebuild, but instead is forced to go to war, once again. Like it does every night.

All alone your mind goes to war with these demons. Your single mind, your worn out mind, your bandaged mind, against an army that has only strengthened by the day. You lie in bed, maybe with a glass of whiskey, and you wage war. The demons yell out your darkest regrets, flash memories of all the wrongs you have committed, and your sleepless mind does all that it can to fight them off. It is a long night, a long war, a long battle that seems to never end.

Now, imagine if we lived in a society where we didn't have to wage these wars alone. Imagine if we could go to a friend, a group of friends, a community of peers, and tell them about our issues, whatever they may be. Imagine if we, as a society, made an effort to offer up swords and our bodies to go to war with another's demons. Imagine if we took building armies for ourselves as serious as we took building armies for future wars that aren't currently taking place.

Imagine if we weren't left to fight alone.

Here is my suggestion. Make an effort to inquire your friends, figure out what they are going through in their lives. Don't settle for "I'm fine," find out what is truly going on. Figure out how you can help them. How you can encourage them. How you can help them defeat their demons once and for all.

​Wars are rarely won alone, but with an army, anything is possible.