I never say "for nothing" anymore... I thought my efforts in 1994 (I was part of UNPROFOR in war torn Bosnia) were in vain and completely pointless. I thought I and others had been sent there just as an empty gesture. In 2005 I returned to Bosnia for the first time after my tour. I needed to confront myself with some
demons of my past, and in a rather large industrial town in central Bosnia I stumbled upon a woman
who was a young kid during the war. What she said to me changed/changes my attitude towards
conflict. She said: "Although you may think you have done nothing, you were here to TRY to make a
difference when others chose to turn their backs. THAT alone gave us the feeling that others cared,
so it mattered. So you did NOT do nothing, you did a lot! You helped make the war a bit less heavy
on our shoulders by sharing our burden!" Well, that is what made me think the way I think now. If it all seems pointless, unneccessary, a drop
on a hot plate... it is never a wasted effort or a wasted life. We all made/make a change. Just my two cents...