It is always too hard

And it is never enough

I know you know how difficult it is to say something to a close friend or loved one when someone passes or a tragedy strikes. And it isn’t easier for a casual friend or a complete stranger.  And yet everyone is working hard to find the words for the people in Manchester. And rightfully so. We, as humans, feel empathy when something horrible happens. Some of it is a bit of relief that it didn’t happen to us, but overall people want to make people feel better. And as you know, the words don’t come easy enough and it is even harder to do something.

Remember the phrase: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?

Well no one knows the pound of cure for the current terrorism situation, and the ounce of prevention should have been done 2 or 3 generations ago to actually have prevented some of the situations we have around the world and especially the festering hatred in the Middle East for the West.

And since the ounce of prevention should have been done a long time ago, the pound of cure is going to take a generation or two to star to find the ways to change people’s hearts and minds.

Ignorance and poverty are great breeding grounds for hate and unfortunately there are people who love to take advantage of this to create an illusion of power for themselves. Then they use this power to drive their disadvantaged followers to unspeakable atrocities. History is filled with way too many examples of this behavior.

Until we realize the best prevention for abuse of power is better education and better opportunities throughout the world, we will continue to deal with despots and insanity. Some people want this situation to continue. Unfortunately, people make money from war and resource manipulation. Again, better education and understanding of the truth is the ounce of prevention. This prevention though takes much more work than most people want to realize. There really isn’t a pound of cure.

Building walls, buying more bullets, raising more armies, creating radicalized anti Muslims will not cure the problem. It only adds to it. Until we work on the prevention, we must protect ourselves, yet that looks different from trying to use the above measures as a way to say this will stop terrorism. As long as people can be manipulated, there will be terrorism in some shape form or fashion. The prevention may underweight the cure in the phrase, yet holds much more weight in solving the problem.

And standing up for your rights is not terrorism, using senseless violence based on hate is terrorism. Way too many people are falling victim to the latter right now so it is hard to differentiate honest fighting for values that should be deserved for the Syrian refugees from the other problems coming out of Syria. We cannot confuse where we need to fight versus being dragged into fights that need to be dealt with in different means.

I have no special magical words for the people of Manchester, or the other past victims of terrorism. I wish I did. Their grief will go on for quite a while. Their anger will feel justified, yet it will be unproductive. We must use what measures we can to protect ourselves as best we can without losing the values we have that this terrorism wants to take away from us. I always hate saying sometimes you should be the better person because at the time it sounds so weak and hallow to the victims. Yet it is true. We become stronger by not giving into the hate and working to build a better world even for the people who are becoming radicalized. Like I always say, the best answer is not always the easiest answer.

So, to the people of Manchester and Paris and New York and San Bernardino and other locales, your grief will be hard to lift, yet please find it in your hearts to work towards making the world a better place so others do not suffer as you have. You understand more than the rest of us the loss so hopefully you use this to work forward.