How many times have you said that, saw it on social media, or heard a friend say it? I literally see it all the time. I haven’t discussed the true basis of The Warrior Chapters in a long time. Maybe it is time we go over it again.
I was reading an old high school friend’s post on social media where she talked about the “new” and “better” her, so felt the need to remind my brothers and sisters that there is no “better” or “worse” part of your life. There are crappy and great things that happen in each chapter, but one chapter is not decidedly better than the other.
Most of the time I see Veterans talking about how this part of their life, Chapter 3, sucks in comparison to their time in uniform. It really doesn’t, it is just different. If we get stuck comparing one thing to another, one thing will always be less. In order for one thing to be better, the other thing has to be worse. And if you happen to be part of the thing that is less, you are stuck in a negative cycle that you simply cannot get out of. Think about athletes who get traded to a team that isn’t as good as the team they were just on or those that compare this year’s team to the team they were on when they won some championship. If they stay in that mindset, they will perpetuate that losing feeling and the results will turn out as expected. So, it is time to break that cycle.
Let me add one more piece to that. My Household 6 (wife) once pointed out that I sometimes view Chapter 2 with rose-colored glasses. When I reflected on this, I realized she was right. While we like to talk about how amazing Chapter 2 was, there were plenty of times it sucked. Remember those times digging a fighting position in the wet, red clay of Fort Benning? Was that awesome THEN? No. It sucked. Remember that time when you were at a professional education school watching endless death-by-PowerPoint lessons while your daughter had a ballet recital of The Nutcracker? Yeah, that sucked. Remember that time when you were on duty for the third weekend in a row and your spouse was frustrated because they were doing all the work at home while you “hung out with the guys” and you got in a huge argument? Yeah, that really sucked too. Remember that time you had a crappy Platoon Sergeant who didn’t know his ass from an azimuth? Uh, that sucked. The point? If you really, and I mean really, look back, it wasn’t all sunshine and unicorns. Unless you were in the Air Force, then it was.
Back on task comparing this chapter with the last one. There are some great comparisons made every day, that while are neat to reflect on, are just detrimental to our positive mental attitude. Was it exciting to fire all sorts of weapons, machine guns, grenade launchers, and missile launchers? Oh, hell yes. But, was it exciting to spend hours cleaning them on some concrete floor later that day? Was it exciting to go to REFORGER and see the German countryside, meet local people and drink high-octane good beer? Yep. But was it exciting to not shower for 30 days in the field? Or more importantly, was it is exciting for your nasty-ass buddies to not shower for 30 days in the field? Was it exciting and amazing to deploy to Afghanistan and finally get to put all that hard work to use? Well, duh. But was it exciting to watch your buddy get shot, run to a bunker every time the sirens sounded or be in a COP that was surrounded on all sides by peiple trying to kill you? Less so. So, are we really comparing apples and apples?
All this comparison is going to do is going to drag you down to a pit of despair, feeling of no meaning in life, feeling of uselessness, feelings of “why am I here?”. There is almost zero possible way for a comparison to come out positive for us. Instead, just let Chapter 2 BE Chapter 2. Why compare? How about instead of comparing we simply reflect on those days? It is merely another paragraph in a chapter of this book of life. There are good parts, bad parts, meaningless parts, meaningful parts, parts you never want to forget, and parts you wish you could forget. And as they say, parts is parts.
I get it. Working at whatever job you might currently have is not as exciting as watching tracer fire go down range towards our intended target. But, it’s better than watching tracer fire coming back towards you, the enemy’s intended target. It is part of this chapter, no better or worse than the last one. We cannot compare everything to Chapter 2, forever. This job, this relationship, these co-workers, these friends, these people we encounter, these experiences we have are just another part of life. Write them down in your book with the same vigor you write down the other experiences. At the end of all of this, your friends and relatives and, in fact, the world, is going to remember your entire body of work, not just Chapter 2. It is all your story and it a has value because it is about you, and you are valuable.
All of you means something to someone else. Critics look at authors and their entire body of work. The world will look at you the same. Make your entire body of work worth reading and every chapter as important as the last.
—SGM DTB—
