I have a thought to share that is still not fully developed. Bear with me and let me see if I can capture this idea.
I recently told somebody that we all have enemies. He disagreed and said he could not think of a single enemy in his life. He went into happy self-fulfillment humanist delusional talk about how we should all love each other and not waste time having enemies.
What a boring person.
I can hear you asking, “Boring? What do you mean boring? Isn’t it great to live a life that does not create enemies?”
Um, well … no. If you are trying to do something significant with your life, you are going to have an enemy. Think of any great person in history. Think of any Saint, from any faith, from any culture. Or just be honest with yourself and look at the people you have encountered in life. Unless you live in a bubble or look like a cuddly panda or live an incredibly boring life, you have an enemy (my friend does not live in a bubble or look like a panda, so he falls into the last category).
Of course, I fully believe that we should love our enemies. I appreciate harmony and peacemakers and folks that believe every situation should be win/win. But that only goes so far. Loving your enemy implies that you still have enemies.
How do we reconcile that? Well, as I said, boring people reconcile this by saying they simply do not have any enemies.
Let me throw out a crazy idea that I think reconciles this idea a bit better than the lame “I have no enemies” explanation. I heard this decades ago and am only now processing it:
I suggest that we should not only love our enemy, but we should also create our enemy.
Now part of our uneasiness about that statement is probably semantics. We don’t like the word enemy. We say “opponent” or “adversary” far more often.
But I grew up spending a lot of time in wrecking yards and on construction sites. In that world, semantics are for people who wear suits. So I’m sticking with the word enemy.
You see, I like having an enemy. An enemy challenges me. I’m pushed harder when I have an enemy, so I work harder and think harder.
Too often we confuse “enemy” with “evil”. I’ve had lots of enemies with whom I’ve had civil relationships. A few that I had a beer with. Even those who were not civil enemies — folks that perhaps I ended up in court with — were not evil. I loved them, or tried to, but they remained my enemy.
So here’s a secret for you boring people who don’t think you have any enemies: Create Your Enemy. You have them anyway, so even if you don’t know who your enemy is, you should create one. It will give you focus, which will sharpen your efforts at whatever you intend on achieving. But don’t demonize your enemy. Don’t classify them as Hitler or Stalin or any other tired comparison. That’s unhealthy for you and unfair to them.
Simply love your enemy. Don’t hate them. Create them, if you must, so you’ll be that much more motivated. And then love them as you combat them. But never forget that they are your enemy.