Reading About Hope

Wow is it cold this morning. It read 4 degrees when I left for the gym this morning at 5am. Today I started to read a new book called "Everything is F*cked, A Book About Hope" By Mark Manson. The book starts off with a story about a hero that most if not all of us have never heard of. His name was Witold Pilecki and he was a highly decorated soldier in the Polish army during the Polish - Soviet War of 1918. Mr. Pilecki went onto become an underground spy for the underground polish resistance when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939. When the rest of the world was trying to hide their heads in the sand about what was going on in Europe at the time and really ignoring the reports of the Nazi concentration camps Pilecki decided he needed to do something to help the rest of the world understand what was happening. Pilecki infiltrated Auschwitz as a prisoner to document what was actually happening at Auschwitz. At first Auschwitz was just a massive prison for the captured war prisoners, but soon after Pilecki's fake capture he saw the Jews being brought in by the thousands on trains. Pilecki soon realized that the Nazi's where committing mass genocide of the Jews. It was then that he determined that he needed to make his escape and get word out to the world what was truly happening at Auschwitz. Think about trying to escape one of the most feared places on the planet at the time. That takes some serious courage and resilience and an unimaginable amount of guts. It was because of Pilecki's heroic efforts that the outside world saw the first documentation of the human atrocities that were happening at Auschwitz. Later in life Pilecki went on to spy against the soviets and their occupation of Poland. His hope was to one day live in a free and self determined Poland. Unfortunately that never happened for Pilecki. He was tried as a criminal against the state in 1947 and was sentenced to death by a kangaroo Soviet Communist court in Poland. On the last day of his trial when he was finally able to speak, knowing full well that his days on this earth were numbered, this is what he said. "My allegiance has always been to Poland and its people. I have never harmed or betrayed any Polish citizen and I regret nothing that I have done for my Polish homeland. He concluded with this statement, I have tried to live my life such that in the hour of my death I would feel joy rather than fear."

We live in a world where heroes like Pilecki barely exist and are hardly celebrated. Instead we look for the easiest way to get something done. We measure our existence through the eyes of others. We move from the latest greatest thing to the next latest greatest thing to help occupy our time and to feel fulfillment. But somehow we always end up feeling empty and left wondering why. This is where true purpose needs to come into play. Without a true purpose life will always feel somewhat empty. Be your own hero and find a purpose in life. When this happens your purpose can become inspiration for others to find their own purpose and their own heroism. If this can truly happen just think what our world would look like. That would truly be heroic.

Thanks and as always your comments and thoughts are welcome.