Patience

Let us remember patience and especially careful action and language to avoid conflict.
Emotions are far more swift than careful thought.
Swiftness of action while starting many wars, in the end usually lose to careful thought and strategic planning by their adversaries.
My dad fought in WW2, my grandpa in WW1 and WW2.
I don’t believe that history shows the USA was overly eager to engage in either war and indeed WW2 came to us while we were still attempting diplomacy.
History can be and is argued by opinion not unlike currently active events. I cannot say that I must only be patient and could not possibly defend myself or my loved ones.
What I am saying is patience and especially thoughtful planning is essential to successful leadership.
Because today is the anniversary of the Dec 7th 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, I would like to remember those lost and forever altered lives and the disaster that had already been building for many years before that date. We hated many enemies during WW1 and WW2. Afterward, while we were getting on with our lives we hated the communists.
The most vicious attack on the USA now includes September 11th 2001. Now, and probably because there has not been a decisive conclusion to this current war many people hate and blame the Muslim religion. It may have been much easier in WW1 and WW2 to round up and isolate Germans and especially Japanese until the decisive battles had been won. I am sure there is prejudice today by some Americans against the Germans, Japanese, and Italians (to name the big three in WW2). Personally I don’t hear a lot of hate aimed toward China or Russia except in jokes. I think most people my age (54) don’t harbor any ill will toward the Japanese, Germans, or Italians.
We do however find it easy on an emotional level to justify hate against the Muslim religion. There is also much hate leveled at Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, you name it! The worst leaders in the world perpetually have used race, religion, national origin, and other ways to stir up fear in their followers to fight, usually for their own selfish fear of losing power and money.
The problem is, once a lousy leader successfully dupes their followers into believing that fear belongs to and should be embraced by them, emotions run high and it is quite easy to convince them conflict is needed to quell those fears and thus save their own livelihood.
So, instead of logically trying to dismantle false perceptions by patience, careful action and language, emotions run high and without good leadership we continually as a human race find ourselves embroiled in affairs of war with self justification such as ‘it’s not our fault’ or ‘we didn’t start it, they did’ or ‘they hate us and want us all dead’.
Level heads, patience, especially careful action and language are essential qualities for leadership. That doesn’t relieve followers like me however from the responsibility of avoiding purely emotional action, perpetuating and encouraging instead careful thinking and weighing consequences before taking action.
It is easy to remember how to conduct war. We have been perfecting survival instincts based on fear since we entered this world and would not have survived without them.
We are now at a point in time where our survival cannot simply be based on fear. Fear may still be an integral part of proactive planning, but the consequences of planning based solely on fear perpetuated by lies instead of purely survival instincts as it was in ancient times may well prove our means of extinction. Thankfully, if common men like me are contemplating this there is still hope. Love and compassion, not fear can extend human survival to the limit of nature instead of the folly of humankind.