Life And Growth
Semper Fi (Always Faithful)
‘Semper Fi’ is short for ‘Semper Fidelis’ – Latin for ‘Always Faithful’. If you’re sharp, you’ll notice that our modern equivalent for a faithful characteristic, fidelity, and it’s opposite, infidelity, derive from this word. ‘Semper Fi’ is a common phrase used in American Culture – particularly in the United States Marine Corp. ‘Semper Fi’ signifies the ‘dedication and loyalty that individual Marines are expected to have for “Corps and Country”, even after leaving the service’. While its meaning is a bit protracted in some circumstances, the sentiment behind it is certainly special.
However, I think a lot of people are inspired by it for the wrong means. Just like the Marines of America are expected to show undying faith to a Corporation whose values and views shift and move as the group of people who run it change, I think people can sometimes become faithful for the wrong reasons – and undying faith can sometimes become blind faith. I used to have this problem with my friendships – I wasn’t willing to stand up to them if they were hurting me in anyway. That seemed, to me, like a direct violation of the trust, loyalty and mutual faith our friendship was based on – and I didn’t want to commit to such an action and consequence. So I would often stay quiet when I felt my friends were getting out of control – I would feel guilty if I made my feelings known. It always died down but it never did me any good for my sense of confidence.
I think a few people are in this position. But if you’re stuck in this position, you yourself are perpetuating the problem. That sounds crazy but think of it this way – why don’t you just drop your friends and get new ones? Some people will nod in agreement to such an idea – some people will wince. But the truth is that those people who don’t want to leave their country, or their friends, or their current partner do so because they’ve misconceived the concept of what ‘Semper Fi’ is actually about.
You can either be faithful to one of two things – people or values. The choices are mutually exclusive. If you’re faithful to people, you’ll end up spending your time with evolving, maturing and ever-changing human beings, whose values shift and change as time passes by. At times they might be pleasant, at other times they might treat you with disrespect or with dishonesty. And likewise you can’t commit to values and expect to keep the exact same group of friends as your life progresses.
A lot of people would argue that both of these choices are equally valuable – that undying faith to values and undying faith to a group of people are both choices that have their fair merits. However I think I have to disagree with this view – simply because of the fact that undying faith to a person is a value in itself. When you first become loyal to a group of people what is it about them that attracts you in the first place? Who are your best friends at the moment? A lot of my friends share similar values to me – and that is what drove me to become friends with them in the first place. I have a group of friends who all share a belief in peace, honesty, respect and loyalty. But over the last year I’ve lost a fair few friends – Luke, Jonny, Kayleigh – who have all changed their values in a direction that I am not aligned with. This isn’t a problem for me – I simply replaced them with people who did have respect for the values I believed in. Ultimately I was much happier with the people I had chosen. After all I doubt I could have spent much time with Luke or Jonny without wincing. I’ll tell you about it someday…
What do you personally feel is more important in your life – the values of a person or the label they have attached to them? Do you want to be faithful to someone because they’re honest, loyal, generous, compassionate and kind? Or do you want to be faithful to someone simply because they’re your friend? “I’ve known them for 4 years – how could I possibly stop the friendship now?!” The truth of the matter is that you don’t really know them anymore – they’ve changed. Their inner compass is pointing in a different direction to yours now and if you remain loyal to them you too will end up being dragged down that path – probably against your own will. Where does your faith lie? Do you want to spend the rest of your life living everything you stand for – or changing to fit the expectations of your current group of friends? In other words, do you want to be yourself, or just what your friends want you to be? Are you satisfying your personal expectations, or just your friends? And is this what you truly want?
Societal conditioning fits us into this bill from a young age. Even outside of the army people often quell their true feeling to just be a part of the ‘flock’. It seems strange to me, and even a little worrying, that music, identity, fashion, social standing, money, clothes and popularity are given greater precedence to things such as honesty, loyalty, joy, purpose, courage and passion. The truth is though that this is just a result of the human condition – our desire to satisfy our worries and concerns by drowning them out with distractions, normally distractions that serve the purpose of drawing attention away from us. The result of this is a society of people who prefer to down a pint then live a purpose. A society so self-absorbed with appearance, that they refuse to develop what lies beneath the surface. A society who treats sex as just an exercise in pleasure, without seeing it as the greatest spiritual unity between two human beings. A society who chases what everyone else is doing, as opposed to their own interests. A society willing to swallow the shallow and insignificant stories of the celebrity world, instead of writing their own stories. In that sense, the value of human life is set to the default of sticking to the times. Where the herd goes we naturally follow. And at the moment the herd is running itself off a cliff…
In what way do you use ‘Semper Fi’? Do you have internal values that you stick to no matter what? Or is your value set to the default of ‘follow the leader’ or more accurately, ‘follow the herd’. Do your friends give you peace because they make you feel ‘normal’ – or do you give yourself peace because you have pride and dignity in your actions? Do you value life or acceptance? And did you make this choice consciously – in other words, did you choose it because it felt personally aligned with you as a person – or did society fill it in for you? Every important gap you have in your life will be filled in by the surrounding environment you live in. If you don’t have a purpose you chose, you’ll likely end up in an unfulfilling and uninspiring job. If you don’t have values that you chose, you’ll likely end up chasing the dreams of other people. Do you want to perpetuate this cycle? Do you want a label that looks good on you and draws other label-wearing idiots towards you? Or do you want an inspiring purpose, a passion you live everyday, a focus that never dies down in you and a reason for your existence? Do you want to be honest, generous, kind, compassionate and internally peaceful?
Where does your ‘Semper Fi’ lie? In you and the values you live by – or the fake value of social acceptance? Ultimately when you recognise that loyalty to friends is really loyalty to a value – you then have the one option. The space that you then have to explore is vast – but at least it is now focused in only one place. And most people move away from social acceptance. After all what is more inspiring in this life then waking up to a world, ready to live and fulfil your passion?
When I place social acceptance alongside passion, the choice is obvious. When I place money and materialism alongside purpose, the choice is obvious. When I place my appearance alongside my spiritual nature, the choice is obvious. I think for a lot of people the choice is obvious as well. However I also think that people are so heavily ingrained in the way of life they’ve been brought up in, that they can’t think to find something new for themselves. They invent excuses like “People will think I’m weird,” or “I’m fairly sure my life is good how it is,” or even “At least this way I can be ‘normal’”. If you think these thoughts though it just shows how weak you truly are – that you would define your life by the pre-existing boundaries and limits that you’ve grown up with. ‘Normal’ people don’t want a purpose, don’t live their passion and don’t think of bettering themselves everyday. They’re too afraid to go out there and explore what lies beyond the barriers of social convention. The general idea is that if the majority of the human race believe it, it must be correct.
30 years ago, everybody smoked. There was so much smoking going on – that these ‘normal’ people saw it and decided to jump on the bandwagon. “Everybody does it – it must be the right thing to do”. Those people are either now dead, or live in fear of lung cancer, emphysema, throat cancer and many other diseases. They sacrificed their health just to be ‘normal’. Does that seem like a fair trade to you?
Do you want to wake up in 10 years time and find yourself no further on in your life then you were when you first started? Do you want to wake up alone in a bed, or with someone you’re not truthfully happy with? Do you want to have an unfulfilling and uninspiring job? Do you want to be addicted to alcohol, nicotine, sugar and fat? Do you want to have no self-respect, no dignity, no control, no foreseeable improvements in your future?
Are you faithful to yourself and to your personal values or to the lies manufactured by societal conditioning?
Where does your ‘Semper Fi’ lie?
Written By: Allec Gullon
