Take the Plunge

Here I am four weeks after completing my masters. I am left with a greater depth of understanding about conflict yet my questions seem to have tripled in the last two years. There is so much to learn; yet you can never truly understand anything in its entirety. But you can commit yourself to become knowledgeable about a topic that interests you. For me, it was conflict, but more so peace. I took two years to attempt to understand the breadth of the concept, and what I was left with was more questions. I took the plunge into a topic I knew would be difficult to wrap my head around, yet even after reading about the difficulty of defining it, let alone bringing into fruition after a conflict, I still believe in its potential. I see the opportunity to expand our knowledge and comprehension about the concept of peace. There lies an unshakeable potential in peace, one that neither war no fear can sustain.

Peace is such an interesting concept because it can manifest itself however an individual, community or nation conceives it. Our ability to create and build it empowers us to define through our context. Finding I,t building it, maintaining it or monitoring it are all vehicles we used to achieve peace. I remember putting up a sticky note in my planner at the beginning of my masters of a quote I believed to be true. Truth created by my own social construction, environment and people I had met thus far in my life. “The pursuit of peace and progress cannot end in a few years in either victory or defeat. The pursuit of peace and progress, with its trials and its errors, its successes and its setbacks, can never be relaxed and never abandoned.” I believe Dag Hammarskjold realized the potential and the challenges that face the idea of peace. Whether the battle is within or between people, the pursuit should never be abandoned. Set backs are inevitable, yet they can sometimes shed some light to a better path.

I have now graduated and still seek more knowledge and understanding about this concept, this idea of peace. I see potential in the young professionals, my elders and in every place I have travelled or lived in. By opening your eyes and seeking more knowledge and understanding, you open many doors of opportunities to connect with people, enable yourself to look past your fears and seek a deeper understanding of the world, but above all yourself. Fear is inevitable, but have the courage to take the plunge, because the next time you decide to, it will feel like its second nature.