How to Resist Islamic Encroachment and Still Be Happy

In a scene from the movie, Armageddon, a young couple is on a picnic, just being with each other and feeling in love, but with a tinge of sadness. He has to leave the next day, and there's a chance he won't survive the mission. It's getting dark. This may be their last moments alone together. And if the mission doesn't succeed, the entire human species will be extinguished.

She said, "Do you think there are others in the world doing just what we're doing right now?"

He said, "I hope so; otherwise, what are we trying to save?"

In the counterjihad movement, we know what we're trying to save, don't we? We're trying to save the Western world, freedom and human rights. Why? Because our political systems are the best ones ever invented to allow people to pursue happiness. It is worth protecting. It's worth defending. But do we have to be miserable to do it?

Each of us discovered Islam's prime directive, and each of us felt motivated to help others learn about the basic elements of Islam, and most of us ran face-first into a wall of anger and resistance and argument and judgment and self-righteousness, and our desire to simply help educate our fellow non-Muslims has become a stressful, eternally-upsetting, arduous chore.

Many drop out of the counterjihad movement because of the stress. They've lost friends. They've alienated relatives. Their life has become no fun. They've lost their happiness.

So they drop out. They burn out. They stop talking about it. The whole exercise seems futile, upsetting, and unbearably frustrating. They think to themselves, "It is going to take a nuclear weapon going off in downtown Chicago before these idiots wake up?" And they give up the fight and leave it to fate.

We can't afford to lose these people. We need to not only educate our fellow non-Muslims, but we need to keep the educated ones in the fight with us. We need to prevent the burnout. That means we need to make sure fighting the good fight doesn't make us so miserable.

Another good reason to focus some attention on this issue is that (as every sales organization has discovered) people who are unhappy are lousy at influencing others. Most people are repelled and repulsed by unhappy, angry, frustrated, depressed people. Nobody wants to listen to someone like that. People don't want to be influenced by someone like that. People don't want to become like that.

So how can we remain in the counterjihad and still be happy? As silly as it may sound, this is an important question.

We have one thing working in our favor already: Having a meaningful purpose contributes greatly to a feeling of happiness and fulfillment. And if there is one thing we all share in the counterjihad movement, it is a meaningful feeling of purpose. This is often ruined, however, by living in a permanent state of upset, anger, and frustration.

How can we keep the positive feeling of a fulfilling purposefulness while reducing the negative, stressful emotions? If we can solve that problem, fewer of us would drop out of the fight, and our effectiveness would increase.

I don't think there is a single answer to this question. But we have many things we can do to reduce the stressfulness of our purpose and allow us to feel happier while still being a dedicated citizen warrior. For example:

1. Collect and associate with allies. Stay in communication with others in the counterjihad movement. This lowers the stressful feeling of being an isolated outcast. Find like-minded people on Facebook. Join ACT! for America and attend their meetings. Join Infidels United and check in every day. Knowing you have people on your side, knowing you're not alone, reduces stress.

2. Improve your effectiveness. Add new skills to your persuasion repertoire. Add new approaches. Success is uplifting. Failure is frustrating and demoralizing. So the better you get at reaching people — the better you get at making your message penetrate and have an impact — the less stressful the process is.

3. Use a stress-reduction technique. There are many different ways to directly reduce stress (see a good list of them here). Find one that works for you and do it when you feel too stressed out. It can make a huge difference in your feeling of well-being and happiness. It's healthy too.

4. Connect with people you love. Connecting produces oxytocin, an anti-stress hormone researchers believe is the antidote or counterbalance to stress hormones. One hormone (adrenaline) is for revving up your system to deal with threats; the other hormone (oxytocin) is for calming you down and rejuvenating and healing. Make sure these stay in balance.

5. Avoid talking about or reading about Islam an hour before bedtime. This habit has helped me a lot. It makes my sleep more restful. Try it and see if it works the same for you.

6. Use a mental checklist like cognitive distortions occasionally to clear your mind. It can greatly reduce your feelings of stress and reveal ways to think differently that can prevent stress in the future.

7. Don't try to do everything. Focus on the one aspect of the purpose that interests you most and that you are most motivated to do. Relax by reminding yourself that there are many of us with you in this fight, and we each have our own specialties and inclinations, and trust that all of it will be done. You can focus on the one thing you're most compelled to do and let the rest go. Let others do what they do, and you do what you do.

8. Don't watch much mainstream news. Don't overdo it on the news, period. Especially watching news; it is stressful and can be demoralizing. When mainstream news talks about Islam, the amount of distortion can be downright maddening. Take it in small doses.

9. Do less of the actual persuasion yourself and let DVDs, books, and articles do some of the work for you. Many people will automatically discount what you say about Islam, no matter how much you know, because they don't consider you an authority. This can be frustrating and stressful. But when they watch DVDs showing interviewed experts, they might be more inclined to accept the information. Not only that, but a 90-minute DVD can deliver a lot of information, saving you time and trouble. Focus on persuading people to watch a DVD rather than focusing on persuading them to listen to you about Islam. It's a more efficient use of your time. Learn more about sharing DVDs and articles.

10. Do your best to see things from the other side's point of view. We often get into a right-wrong, us-versus-them, all-or-nothing position, and part of the reason this is stressful is that the world is not as black-and-white as this oppositional stance tries to make it. The other side of this worldwide debate has some legitimate points, and it eases a lot of stress (and makes your arguments more persuasive) to understand those legitimate points and to graciously concede them.

11. Be committed to perpetual learning. Every time something stresses you out, take the time to improve yourself. What can you do differently next time that will make it less stressful? The process of learning and growing itself can give you a lift and reduce stress.

That's our list so far. Please add your own ideas in the comments, or email them to me and I'll post them here for you. Let's help each other fight the good fight and be happy too.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here.

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Nobody Goes Back

Over the years, we've heard from hundreds of people who have changed their minds about Islam. They once believed Islam was similar to other religions, but eventually, either because of events in the news or some earnest investigation, they came to the realization that Islam is a) unique and b) not a religion of peace.

But we (the two people who run Citizen Warrior) realized in a conversation the other day that we've never — not once — heard from someone (or even heard about someone) who went the other way. Nobody has ever told us that they were counterjihadists but changed their minds and decided Islam was, in fact, a religion of peace.

Not once have we ever heard of someone who thought Islam was dangerous but then changed their mind because of events in the news or because they read more about it, and decided Islamic doctrine wasn't dangerous to non-Muslims after all.

Nobody goes back.

This is an encouraging realization. The disturbing nature of Islamic doctrine requires no convincing or persuading. A person only has to look, and there it is. And once it is seen, it cannot be unseen. The article we recently posted to Inquiry Into Islam is a good example. Read it here: I'm Running Out of Ways to Defend Islam. It is the confession of a liberal writer who has been trying to find ways to defend Islam, but the facts keep stacking up against the proposition.

The facts about Islam only move people in one direction: Toward the realization that Islamic doctrine is a straightforward exposition of a pernicious and dangerous ideology. The reason it only moves people in one direction is because it's true.

Always On Watch left a comment on our recent article, How Do You Know You've Gotten Through? She wrote, "The burning alive of the Jordanian pilot did a great deal to wake up those with whom I work. At long last! I've been trying to wake up these folks for years."

We've heard the same comment over and over. Some event, some atrocity, some new outrage caused someone to finally look into it — or it was the straw that broke the camel's back — and they suddenly switched from someone who thought Islam was a religion of peace to someone who realizes it isn't. For some people it was the Madrid train bombings. For some it was the Fort Hood shooting. For some it was Lee Rigby's murder. The atrocities keep stacking up, and with the advent of ISIS and its penchant for videos, the number of non-Muslims waking up greatly accelerated.

After our conversation, we made a short list of suggestions that arose naturally from this realization:

1. When we are talking to people who still don't accept the painful truth, we should seek to inform, not persuade. We don't need to convince them because there's only one direction it can go. Our purpose should be to just get them to look.

2. When sharing articles and videos, use sources they will respect. If your friend is a liberal, for example, use liberal sources, and don't share anything that puts down liberals or makes fun of them. If your friend is a scientist, use scientific sources, or at least sources that would be respected by a scientist, and don't share anything mystical or religious. And so on.

3. In advertising, it is often said that people need at least six exposures to something before they begin to accept it. So take the pressure off any particular conversation. Say a little something and then let it go. A few weeks later, say a little something else. Don't argue. Don't rub their nose in it. Just give a little information, delivered casually and matter of factly, and then go on to something else. This gives their psyche time to process a very painful idea that nobody in his right mind would want to accept: That 1.6 billion people on the planet claim membership in an ideology whose main purpose is to eliminate all other cultures, using violence if necessary. Let that ugly truth sink into their minds slowly, a little bit at a time.

4. The reason to tread lightly is to prevent them from feeling the need to defend their position. When you push too hard and make someone defend their point of view, they will often hang onto it longer and may hang onto it forever out of sheer stubbornness and self-righteousness. But when someone hasn't had to justify or rationalize their opinion in public, it is much easier for them to change their minds.

5. Probably our best approach is to try to make people curious about Islam, so they look into it for themselves. And direct them to accurate sources.

Remember, nobody goes back. Once Islam is seen for what it is, the illusion is shattered forever. Keep that in mind and take your time.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here.

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A Game Worth Playing

I was talking to a 30 year-old man the other day (read our conversation here). When I mentioned that madrassas have been cranking out fundamentalists for years, I could tell he immediately felt the situation was hopeless. Instead of being motivated to do something about it, he told me the next day it made him want to drop out of everything and see the world before it was gone.

I was thinking about this afterward, and I've thought of a way to speak to this young mindset. He loves playing video games, as many young men of that age do, especially Halo and Destiny.

Halo is one of the most popular video games of all time. The game is about an interstellar war between the human race and theocratic aliens whose leaders are called the Prophets. I'm not making this up.

A newer game, created by the same people, has also proved to be immensely popular. It's called Destiny. The player must try to protect humanity from aliens who would wipe out the human race.

In other words, when he wants to have fun, he and millions of others like him, fight (in a video game) for a great cause. But when a real live version of this game appears, he wants to drop out of the world and travel? In the future, when this comes up in a conversation, I'm going to say something like this: "Come on man! You could be the hero you fantasize about. What we have been given is a game truly worth playing."

I will try to make it clear to him that he could, in real life, fight against a great evil in the world. We face a very real existential threat to the human race, to women's rights, to freedom of speech, to freedom of religion, to art, to science, to everything good about modern civilization, and there is something he could do to defend it.

The best stories, the best movies, the best video games all have one thing in common: Big stakes, big evil, and a few good people with a small chance of saving the world. I believe every human heart yearns for such a "game," such a cause, such a purpose.

I thought this idea might be useful for all of us. We need to find a way to infuse this perspective into the hearts of our young men and women. We need to help them understand that this cause is what they have been looking for.

Citizen Warrior is the author of the book, Getting Through: How to Talk to Non-Muslims About the Disturbing Nature of Islam and also writes for Inquiry Into Islam, History is Fascinating, and Foundation for Coexistence. Subscribe to Citizen Warrior updates here. You can send an email to CW here.

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