The Things Worth Believing In

Seeking “truth” is often framed as a purely intellectual or scientific pursuit—a hunt for facts, data, and evidence. But in the spiritual and human sense, I’ve found that truth is as much about faith as it is about fact.

I have seen many bitter, sour people who spent too much of themselves worrying about what is “objectively” true. Having seen what people are capable of doing to one another over a long career, I am far from naive. I’m not preaching “sunshine and daisies.” However, reality and “truth” in human terms are fundamentally different from scientific “evidence.”

The Unquantifiable Truths

When we discuss policy, law, or tactics, we absolutely need to consider scientific facts. But on an individual level—the level where we actually live our lives—happiness is about what we choose to believe.

The “Things Worth Believing In” are the ones you can’t put under a microscope:

• Love
• Courage
• Freedom
• Justice
• Good prevailing over evil

If someone wants to view life as nothing more than a series of chemical reactions and electrical impulses, they are welcome to it. But I choose to believe otherwise. No triumph of the human spirit was ever founded in cynicism.

The Lens of the Long Haul

We all believe in something. Those beliefs, whether rightly or wrongly held, are the lens through which we view every call, every interaction, and every struggle.

Cynicism is easy. It’s a defense mechanism that feels like “realism,” but it’s actually a slow-acting poison. It tells you that because you saw something ugly today, everything is ugly. It tells you that justice is a myth because you saw a “bad guy” get off on a technicality.

Choosing to believe in justice and the inherent “good” of the mission isn’t being blind to the facts; it is a conscious decision to maintain a lens that allows for hope. It’s about recognizing the “dust and dung” of the world while refusing to let it dim your view of the stars.

The Choice

At the end of the day, your mindset is the only thing the job can’t take from you unless you give it away. You can be a practitioner who sees the world as a series of cold equations, or you can be one who believes that what we do matters on a scale that isn’t always measurable.

I know which one makes for a better life. I’ll take faith over “pure” facts any day of the week.