Bruised, bloodied, exhausted.
It is not your respite that must be on your mind.
It is your freedom, your victory, and what the outcome of this era will mean for your children, your grandchildren, your family, for posterity.
Do not ask for peace in your day. Do not ask for calm. Do not ask what you have done to deserve this.
Ask for harder battles.
Give this life everything you have.
Eschew those who would calm you down.
Deny an ear to those who would challenge your savagery.
Yes, savagery. Your savagery is what your beliefs demand.
Your principles deserve no less than your complete victory on their behalf.
“Extremist,” they denounce you as, for having beliefs. Give such talk no mind.
“Can’t you be more moderate!” they demand.
Pay such nonsense no heed.
Recognize it for the fork tongued venom it is.
Compromise is a slow death to your values. Compromise is no virtue in the face of principles.
Compromise shows the world whether you are a person of preferences or a person of values. For the person of preferences, the right reason has just not come along for him to betray his values. He just needs to receive the right fork tongued cajoling, the right palm greasing, the right pressure from a simpleminded thug, and he will bend.
For the person of values, there is no excuse worthy of bending values over.
Compromise is never a virtuous way to handle values. Compromise is only ever an option around that which you do not uphold as a value. Around a value, little is more vile than the fork tongued encouragements that you be “reasonable,” that you “compromise.”
Compromise is the key to wearing you down and slowly achieving that which you abhor.
Compromising on beliefs of virtue are vile.
It has been wisely pointed out that, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice… and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Those who recognize the value of meaningful sacrifice, those who recognize the value of what a meaningful struggle means, do not pray for peace in their day, they pray for broader shoulders, bigger challenges, greater battles, for they recognize there is work to be done and burdens to be carried and that work is going to be done by someone.
Will that someone be you?
The masks need to be gone. Not sometimes in your life. All the time. If you don’t know how, read Face Masks in One Lesson. If you don’t know why, read Face Masks Hurt Kids. It starts there, and we have so much other work to do.
Your values need to be followed. Not sometimes in your life. All the time. That is one of the most impactful ways that you can shape the world around you. Have dogged determination around your values, and in tumultuous and confusing times such as these you will come to influence and lead.
Wherever you are in that process, of liberating yourself and the world around you, there can be no more whining. There can be no more avoiding responsibility.
Willingly be the person in the room who everyone blames when things go wrong. Accede to that level of responsibility. Willingly embrace it.
The face mask is an opportunity to say “No!” to tyranny, and there are so many other opportunities crying for a lion like you to step forward into them and lead.
And that requires you setting a boundary and never letting that be crossed. Setting a boundary and communicating that to others. Setting a boundary and defending that. And that is the same as saying identifying your values, communicating your values, and defending your values.
For the boundaries around your values are the most important boundaries.
Can you do that?
If you can, you are part of the solution that will lead the world around you back toward sanity. That is needed of you, dear lion. Because if you can’t, what comes next will be ugly.
And if you can, it doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing, you will have all the skills to lead you and your tribe safely through thick and thin.
It all begins with the face mask. But the face mask is about so much more.
Allan Stevo
Do you use a search engine that hides the truth from you? If you are using Duck Duck Go, the answer is yes. My team and I studied the algorithms of 13 search engines and found the 11 that suck and the 2 that don’t. Because we know people are busy, we list them all out on the first page of this in-depth, 25-page report, available at RealStevo.com/search or by texting the word TRUTH to 33777.