Standing tall : Staying True to What We Serve

When It’s Not Direction We Lack, but Perspective

There are times when we search for our course as we might search for a route on a map: knowing where to go, what to prioritize, what to reject, and what to devote our time and energy to. It is a necessary search, for no one can navigate confusion for long without a compass. But it doesn’t always go far enough, because sometimes it isn’t direction that’s missing. It’s the height—the kind the eagle provides, in Native American mythology and spirituality

By that I mean an inner place from which we observe reality without letting it swallow us whole. A place stable enough not to confuse every urgency with a command, every fear with a truth, every pressure with an obligation. If we are too close to the noise, everything takes on disproportionate dimensions: the immediate obstacle, the criticism of the moment, the fatigue of the day, the prevailing opinion, the fear of displeasing. We then look up from the ground, from the dust, where everything seems urgent and where every step back already feels like a defeat.

Standing taller is not placing oneself above

It does not mean believing oneself to be superior. The nuance matters, and I insist on it: placing oneself above distances us from others, while standing higher imposes an obligation on us toward them. The former becomes arrogance and separates us from the people around us; the latter remains a demand and reminds us of what we owe them. To rise above is to refuse to live at the level of the noise when the noise seeks to dictate our pace and direction. It is rediscovering, under pressure, what we want to remain faithful to. Faithful to a certain idea of what we serve. Faithful to a certain idea of the person we want to become. Faithful, sometimes, to something even simpler: a promise made, a dignity to preserve, a responsibility not to abandon just because the moment becomes uncomfortable.

What the world seeks to take from us

For the world does not merely seek to inform us. It often seeks to take something from us: our attention, our anger, our fear, our need for recognition, our desire to belong... in order to better distract us, to manipulate us. This is rarely done with violence; more often, it is through small, successive solicitations, through accumulated urgencies, through stories repeated until they become our inner weather. Social media exploits these vulnerabilities to perfection. And little by little, if we are not careful, we live below what we know to be right: more reactive than lucid, more cautious than courageous, more busy than purposeful.

We adapt, we compromise, we stall, but something inside us knows that we have begun to yield more than to choose. Our freedom crumbles, we lose our way within ourselves, and we lose ourselves.

A beacon in the fog

The ability to rise above, to find a point of reference—I have recognized this in certain historical figures capable of weathering crises without letting them define them. These figures are not invulnerable nor free from error, but they are driven by something greater than their immediate interests. They move forward with a guiding principle that acts as a beacon in the fog.

I am not speaking of a refuge from the storm, but of a landmark that prevents one from confusing the storm with the entire horizon.

De Gaulle remains for me one of these figures. Canadian as I am, he left a mark on me through the strength he drew from what he called a certain idea of France. The phrase was neither a political opinion nor national nostalgia. It stemmed from a guiding vision, an inner conviction, through which he refused to reduce France to its defeat, its renunciations, or the momentary state of its strength. In 1940, occupation and isolation did not weigh as abstractions on every decision; yet, above this reality, another interpretation remained possible: that of a deeper calling and a future not to be abandoned to the mere evidence of the moment. Seeing further ahead does not, therefore, mean seeing less clearly. It can mean seeing more completely: not confusing the humiliation of a single moment with the entirety of the future.

Adaptation without fidelity becomes drift

We live in a world that constantly pulls us back toward the short term: responding, reacting, adjusting, performing, not missing the trend. Adaptation is necessary; it would be naive to deny it. But detached from a deeper fidelity, it becomes an elegant form of drift. We adapt to everything, then we no longer know exactly what we remain faithful to, and we lose our way. We end up confusing flexibility with a lack of backbone, caution with resignation, realism with a gradual acceptance of narrowing horizons. Rising above is not a matter of rigidity. It is about finding a course in the storm, a bearing solid enough to navigate without selling out, to adapt without abandoning oneself, to listen without letting oneself be absorbed.

A loyalty true enough to hold us accountable

Yet this idea must hold us accountable. An idea that obliges nothing is merely a well-formulated preference. True fidelity creates tension: it illuminates the gaps between what we say and what we do, disrupts small compromises, and makes certain concessions more difficult. It sometimes asks us to renounce immediate approval, quick gain, and that convenient security that comes from staying on the easier side. This is why it becomes a force for freedom: not because it frees us from external constraints, but because it liberates us from some of our internal bondages—the need to please, the fear of judgment, the obsession with control, the weariness that drives us to lower our standards. From then on, certain things lose their power. The prevailing opinion remains important without becoming sovereign. Fear remains present without deciding alone. Criticism still strikes, yet is not enough to make us abandon what we know we must serve.

What Descends into Action

For what we are faithful to never remains long in the lofty realms of discourse. It descends into action, or it disappears. The question then becomes very concrete: does this decision live up to what I say I serve, to what I want to serve? Does this concession stem from an understanding of reality or from a disguised surrender? Does this caution protect what is essential or only my comfort?

These questions do not arise only in major, visible decisions. They arise in a conversation we postpone, in a boundary we dare not uphold, in a compromise we justify too quickly. Faithfulness is evident in our schedule, in our refusals, in the quality of presence we maintain when circumstances invite cynicism or withdrawal.

Our Monkey brain and the chosen path

A certain vision of what we serve must be imagined, internalized, and brought to life within us; otherwise, it remains an abstraction. It must also be protected from the chatter that will seek to downplay it as soon as it becomes costly. Our Monkey brain does not fall silent simply because loyalty is noble;

it stirs even more fiercely when the chosen height demands action. It will say that this is not the time, that the risk is too great, that no one will understand, that one must be reasonable. It is precisely there that one must return to the chosen height. Not to deny the fear, but to remind it that it is not alone on board. Not to tell ourselves a heroic story, but to prevent the lowest one—that of comfort and renunciation—from writing the entire script.

Reclaiming a higher ground to stand on

In a world that scatters, manipulates, and wears us down, fidelity to what we serve is not a moral luxury: it protects our inner freedom. For those who do not know what they serve become more easily available to serve what others have defined for them. One does not answer this once and for all; one returns to it, experiences it, refines it. This elevation is cultivated and purified through contact with reality. When it becomes clear, it changes the way we move forward: we no longer choose solely based on what is urgent, but on what matters; we no longer seek only to avoid loss, but to preserve what gives meaning to the journey. And perhaps this is the first act of freedom: to rise up, and then to accept returning to that higher place every time the world seeks to make us live at a lower level.