We’re always wearing gloves, always afraid to get our hands dirty.

But it matters where you stand.

You know? It seems like you think your indifference doesn’t really affect the world. You act like your fear of conflict is actually a virtue.

But love and justice and all the other things that keep you awake at night? They’re thirsty for someone who’s not afraid to get their hands dirty.

You’ve made your mistakes. You’ve also been hurt. That doesn’t mean you have to spend your life avoiding the mud.

The mud is where the men are made. 

Honesty is going to be your best policy. Bravery is going to be your weapon. But you can’t pull triggers and win wars with gloves pulled over your hands. 

People aren’t going to like it. They’re going to leave you and accuse you.

They never like the ones who are knee-deep in muck and covered in dust. But battles aren’t won by the neat and tidy. The safe may have their comfort, but they have no victory.

Stop being afraid of digging your heels in and deciding that you’re going to fight. Please don’t stay where you are because you believe it’s easier that way. 

Peace is not kept, it’s made.

The bad guys are going to fight, the war will still rage on. And while you sit and say that you hate or are afraid of conflict, the good guys numbers seem to be growing less and less. The war isn’t going to stop just because you don’t fight. Hate it or not, conflict and battles are happening, you’re never going to really be able to avoid them. It’s going to be hard and it’s going to hurt, but you were born on the side of victory, so you can’t be afraid to get your hands dirty.

Your fear, apathy, indifference or anxiety doesn’t make you peaceful. It makes you detached. Oh, it makes you downright unmoved and calloused. 

Because when you let others carry the load of combat while you sit in your reverence; you start to lose your smile.

And I really love to watch you smile. I love the victory you’ve always carried on your shoulders; even when the bloodshed was vast and you were covered in the paint of your wounds. But you were smiling and laughing. You were dripping with triumph even in your damaged state. You knew then that it matters where you stand.

You knew back then that half the battle is letting your mind learn the truth your heart has always known. It’s about accepting the things that your ears don’t know how to hear. The other half of your battle has always been walking away. Not in indifference, but intentional steps, because you’ve been fighting for the wrong things.

You’ve been fighting for comfort, safety, and security. Oh, your days of security have been a war of their own. You’ve struggled for things that will never bring you joy, that will only bring you emptiness.

You’ve left behind all the things that make you better, stronger, and braver because you’ve never known how to rest from defense. You’ve never known offense. You’ve never known the courage that ignites in your bones when you choose to make the first move, when you choose to fight for something better, instead of staying in what you have.

You are meant to taste the celebration of winning the peace you made instead of the peace you kept. Don’t be afraid of the wars you march into, they are far easier than the ones that you are slung into while kicking and screaming. You never needed to fear the fight, because the battles happen even if you never move. But it’s the battles you start: the ones for love and victory, for peace and justice, those are the ones that make a man. Those are the ones that change the world.