The Cost of Complacency
A Veterans Day reflection on courage, comfort, and the price of looking away.
Before there were borders or governments or flags, drive-throughs, washing machines, and cell phones, there were people. People who built fires to stay warm, who raised children under open skies, who learned to survive through community and courage. From the beginning, humanity has been both beautiful and brutal. We’ve created art and architecture, poetry and philosophy - and also weapons, hierarchies, and wars. We’ve built civilizations that soared, and we’ve watched them crumble under the weight of greed and power.
Across both millennia and continents, the pattern repeats: Empires rise. Empires fall. Kings are crowned. Dictators rise. Citizens rebel.
The earth is divided and redrawn, over and over again - often in blood. And still, through it all, we keep insisting this time will be different. That we’ve evolved beyond corruption, beyond cruelty. But every era has its own blind spots, its own cruelty disguised as progress. Every civilization has believed it was immune to collapse.
The truth? We’re not. No one ever is.
Even now, in 2025, the world continues to burn. Nations commit war crimes while preaching peace. Children and teachers are murdered weekly in school shootings. Families are displaced overnight - unable to afford their rent or mortgages. Entire populations are silenced, starved, or erased - all in the name of power, religion, profit, and pride.
Dictatorships rise. Democracies fracture. Millions live without food, shelter, or clean water. Our mentally ill brothers and sisters are abandoned on the streets. Our Veterans - who gave everything for their countries - are forgotten when they come home.
And everywhere, the same sickness runs deep: Greed over empathy. Comfort over conscience. Power over humanity. Silence over truth.
It’s not just an American problem. It’s a human one. But America - this place that once called itself the light on the hill - should damn well know better by now.
This land we stand on wasn’t “discovered.” It was lived on, loved, and protected by Indigenous peoples who honored the earth in ways settlers could never understand. Long before ships arrived, this continent thrived with languages, trade, art, and ceremony.
Then came colonization - disease, displacement, and domination.
Our ancestors - yours and mine - came seeking refuge and opportunity. They fled persecution, famine, and war, desperate to build something better. But they didn’t discover a “new world.” They invaded one. And then we rewrote the story to sound like salvation.
(And no, it wasn’t fucking Christopher Columbus - and, yes, I know that’s what we were all taught in school - that’s a conversation we’re long overdue to have on another day.)
With the exception of our Indigenous brothers and sisters, and the millions of people who were kidnapped from Africa, and forced to work in deadly conditions, nearly all of us descend from immigrants - people who came here searching for safety, stability, and hope.
For centuries, they arrived on crowded ships and in worn shoes, clutching dreams of a better life. They came here because America represented possibility. A place where you could be anything, believe anything, love anyone. A place where you could live without fear of persecution, hunger, or tyranny. A place that, for all its flaws, still meant hope.
My ancestors came for those reasons. Some fled religious persecution. Others fled famine, dictatorship, or war. They came because they had no other choice - because America was their last chance to survive.
At its best, America isn’t a place. It’s a promise. A covenant that we ALL deserve safety, opportunity, and the chance to build a good life.
A home where Sunday dinners matter, where families talk face-to-face, where kids grow up surrounded by community and possibility. Where we look up from our phones long enough to see each other - to witness life, love, and connection as it’s happening.
Because nobody gets to be free if we’re not all free - and nobody gets to keep that freedom if we refuse to defend it together.
Complacency Has a Cost: Freedom isn’t a finish line. It’s a living agreement - one that depends on us showing up every single day.
We, the people, got comfortable. We trusted that others - our veterans, our leaders, our neighbors - would carry it for us. And in that comfort, corruption crept in. Now we’re watching rights we thought were unshakeable being chipped away: Families torn apart. Truth twisted beyond recognition. Money and power are valued more than human life.
Our ancestors fought wars to stop this very thing. And yet, here it is - on our soil, in our schools, in our feeds, in our hearts.
Freedom is a living, breathing thing. And if we don’t take care of it - if we stay complacent - we will lose it.
A Veterans Day Reality Check: I keep thinking about a friend - a husband, a father, a veteran who bravely served this country. He fought for our freedom - yours, mine, everyone’s. Now he works at the VA, still serving those who’ve carried that same weight. And yet, during this historic government shutdown, he’s been without pay for more than a month.
Two paychecks missed. Back pay that could take forever. Each day, the bills pile up higher than the gratitude he’s owed.
Last week, when we ordered dinner from a local sandwich shop, he quietly said he’d bring his own drink from home because it was too expensive to buy one there. A man who once risked his life for this country - bringing his own drink because a soda costs too much.
Let that sink in.
That’s what we’ve done. That’s what this nation has allowed.
And he’s not alone. Every day, veterans face long wait times for care, backlogs on disability claims, underfunded programs, and a system that too often leaves them behind. That’s how we repay them? With bureaucracy? With neglect? With silence?
These are the men and women who stared down death so we could live freely - and we’ve left them fighting a whole new war at home.
Here’s what I know in my bones: we are not as divided as they want us to think we are.
When you strip away the noise, most of us want the same things. Safety. Peace. Love. Prosperity. A fair shot at life.
We want to earn a living wage. We want affordable healthcare and homes that don’t break us. We want to raise our families, grow old, and have enough time to enjoy this brief, beautiful life.
If you can’t agree with that - if basic dignity doesn’t move you - it’s time to take a hard look in the mirror.
Because we all have work to do. We all have egos to set down. None of us is perfect. But this moment - this time in history - demands that we answer honestly:
Am I okay with what I’m seeing?
Because if the answer is no, then we have to start acting like it.
Here’s the truth: none of us will make it out of this alive.
That’s not meant to be grim - it’s meant to be grounding. Because if our time here is temporary, then what are we doing with it?
Our ancestors fought and bled for this country. Our veterans carried the cost of freedom on their backs. Indigenous people endured unimaginable loss. Nearly four million souls lived and died enslaved on American soil — a nation built on the contradiction of freedom promised and freedom denied. Immigrants built new lives from nothing. Leaders before us - flawed, human, and brave - tried to light the way.
And all that sacrifice, all that pain, all that progress, means nothing if we refuse to learn from it.
We have the stories.
We have the history.
We have the warnings.
What we choose to do with them now will define who we are - not as Democrats or Republicans, not as red or blue, but as Americans. As humans. We owe it to the ones who came before us - and the ones who will come after - to listen, to learn, and to lead with integrity.
Because the alternative? Silence. Decay. Destruction. The slow, quiet death of everything they fought for.
So this is our reckoning - our moment to decide who we want to be. We can still choose unity over division. We can still choose courage over comfort. We can still choose humanity over hate. We can be the generation that refuses to forget - that honors the brave not with empty words, but with action. Because freedom isn’t just what they fought for. It’s what we fight for, every damn day.
And maybe, just maybe - if we have the guts to face the truth and the heart to stand together, we can finally live up to the promise they believed in.
That’s the America worth fighting for.
That’s the legacy worth leaving behind.
