Your Mission Isn't Over, Stop Acting Like It IS

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome to Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert. This podcast is where we deliver tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas to help The US military veteran community and anybody else willing to listen to live their absolute best lives. You know, it's been a tough week for our community, and we've had this withdrawal from Afghanistan.

We've had the tragic deaths of 13 service members during that withdrawal. We have witnessed a country that we fought for being handed over to our former enemies. We've witnessed equipment that we once used being handed over to our former enemies. And we have the only good thing to come out of the last week really has been the fact that we've had kind of an awakening in this community. We've had veterans stepping up to the plate, veterans coordinating, trying to get their Afghan interpreters and and US civilians out of Afghanistan.

We've had veterans messaging back and forth with active duty service members trying to give them advice, trying to spread the message of what was actually going on over there. And honestly, guys, it's it's been beautiful. But I want to ask a question and I think it's a valid question for where we are right now. And it's this, okay? So now what?

What do we do? Where do we go from here? And I wanna go back to something that I've said over and over and over again on this show. Real change in this country is only going to come when we as a community wake up. I believe the veteran community has always been the sleeping giant in this country.

I believe that we need to step up. We need to step up as a community. We need to be taking an active role in our communities. We need to be building businesses. We need to be out there running for office.

But beyond that, we have to be taking an active role in our lives. We've got to be better spouses. We've got to be better parents. We've to be out there teaching our children. Because if not, what's going to happen is we're never going to get into a position where we're actually going to change anything.

We're going to be some fringe group that's sitting here on Instagram, sitting here on Facebook, talking about what things were like when we were actively in the service, talking about how things should be without ever really coming up with any solutions. So where does that start? And again, it starts really simple. Think about where you are in your life right now. Think about what you could be improving upon.

You don't have to be considering running for Congress. You don't have to be building a business tomorrow. But what could you do to take that next step in your life? Is there an idea that you've always wanted to take action on that you haven't had the chance to? Is there a next step?

Maybe you could be a better husband. Maybe you could sit down and have a talk with your wife about you know, what she needs. Maybe you could be sitting down and actually teaching your kids some of the lessons you learned over the years. Maybe maybe there's a opportunity for you to volunteer in your community, to go into schools. Maybe there's a a team you could coach.

Maybe there's a position at work that you need to be stepping up to try to work hard to get. Whatever it is, think about what that next step is for you. And then beyond that, think about where you want to end up. One of the problems, I think, with the idea of being a veteran is this. We shoot ourselves in the foot from day one.

The very day that we get out and we take on that identity of veteran, you know, we hold this idea of the military being the greatest thing that we'll ever do with our lives and that we'll never go on to do anything as cool or anything as important as that was. And I think we all need to get that idea out of our heads. Being in the military should be one of the greatest things you do with your life. Right? It should be one of the greatest things you do with your life.

And quite honestly, it shouldn't even be close to the greatest thing you do with your life. Think about the time frame, the age frame that most of us serve. It's from, you know, 18 to 22 years old. Maybe if you stay in a little bit longer, you'd be in your mid to late 20s. And very few of us go on and continuing serving into our 30s and 40s.

But yet we get out and we wrap ourselves in this idea of what a veteran's supposed to be. And I think a lot of people have an idea that a veteran's supposed to be some bitter asshole who sits on the couch, posts really crazy memes, and drinks whiskey. And that really shouldn't be the case. We need to change what that means for us. And we need to change this idea that that thing that we did, that that time period in our lives is gonna be the greatest time period in our lives.

The greatest time period in your life should be ahead of you. I don't care if you're 30 years old. I don't care if you're 40 years old. I don't care if you're 50 years old. Your greatest years should be coming up, and you should be working toward that.

And what you should be asking yourself is is, you know, not, alright, how am I ever gonna find something as important to do as the military? You should be asking yourself, well, what does it require of me to live a great life now that I've served? What is required of me to do something as important? And what do I have to do to find meaning in every day from this point on till the day I finally die? We've got to be asking ourselves that.

We've got to be finding new missions. We've got to be finding new purposes. And you can't just sit there and say, well, I don't have the skills or I'm never gonna be as good at anything again. That's bullshit. You know it's bullshit, and you need to put that aside.

Because if not, we're letting it all go. Sitting on the sidelines doesn't work. We've seen what's happened in this country over the last few years. A lot of us are complaining about it. Very few of us are actually out there doing anything.

Who are you influencing? What what change are you trying to make on a daily basis? Think about that. Think about how this country could be. And if you're not if you don't feel like you're in a position to exact change or to to do anything, think about how you can get yourself in a position to do that.

And stop telling yourself that you're never gonna have that importance again. Stop telling yourself that you're never gonna find that sort of mission again. Because the mission's right now. It's right here in front of you. There is no more war for you to fight.

The war front is right here at home, and it's every single day that you wake up and you go to work and you put 110% in and you treat your family the right way, you teach your kids the right way, you teach them how to change this world, and you keep trying to change this world for yourself. And I hope that makes sense to you guys because I think that this is a concept that's so important for us. It's so important for this community. More importantly, it's so important for this country and the world. If we don't change as a community, if we don't step up, things are just going to get worse.

And we're going to keep seeing this thing that we love, this experiment called The United States Of America falling down into a sinkhole. So let's step up. Let's take every chance we can to make things better, and let's turn things around. This is Chris Albert, the Warrior Soul podcast. Get out there and live your best lives while you can, and I am out.