What have you given to your country?
I've been sitting with this question for a while. And honestly, it gives me a headache. Not because it's impossible to answer, but because most of us have never actually tried.
The Two Extremes
Think about a soldier. He gives his life, completely, without negotiation.
Now think about a politician. He takes his cut, quietly, without apology.
On the surface, one seems noble and the other criminal. But here's the uncomfortable part: both are contributing to the country, one positively and one negatively. The machine keeps moving either way.
So the question isn't just who gives and who takes. The question is: where do you fall?
The Bodyguard Problem
Let me give you an analogy that changed how I see this.
A wealthy businessman hires a bodyguard to protect his family. One day, rivals attack. The bodyguard steps in front of a bullet and loses his life. The businessman's family is shaken, but they absorb it. They take care of the bodyguard's family. One household. Manageable.
Now scale that up.
A country goes to war. A thousand soldiers step in front of a thousand bullets. A thousand families are left behind. And instead of someone quietly taking care of them, those families are running to courts, chasing pensions, navigating systems that were never designed to move fast.
The government pays the soldier to protect the border. But who pays him for protecting you, your home, your child's school, your sister walking back at night?
That question is not rhetorical. It is a debt. And most of us walk around every day without acknowledging it.
A Country Is a Living Thing
We've been taught to think of a country as a flag, a government building, a border on a map.
But a country is more like a human being. It has an outer layer and an inner layer. The outer layer is the borders, the army, the institutions. The inner layer is the people, the values, the culture we quietly pass on to each other.
No matter how fierce the pressure from outside, if the inner layer is united, nothing breaks through.
The real vulnerability of any nation is never at its borders. It is always within.
We are safe today, genuinely and physically safe, because someone is standing at a freezing post so we don't have to. The least we owe that person is to not let the country he's protecting rot from the inside.
So What Do You Actually Give?
You don't have to enlist. You don't have to run for office. But there are things, simple and unglamorous things, that most of us quietly refuse to do.
Ask for accountability. The government exists for you. You don't exist for the government. Every time you accept corruption as normal, every time you shrug and say "that's just how it is," you are handing power to people who were never supposed to have it unchecked.
Be honest, especially when shortcuts are rewarded. We all know what it looks like: a student spends years preparing, grinding, sacrificing. And then someone with the right connections and the right stack of cash walks right in front of them. That injustice only survives because enough people stay silent.
Refuse mediocrity, especially in people with power. Our mothers used to compare us with that smarter cousin and we hated it. But I've realised something: that kind of comparison is exactly what the sixty-year-old running this country desperately needs and never gets.
Lift someone up. You're going to smell great just by walking into a perfume shop. Spend time with people who are sharper and more driven than you. Then turn around and bring someone else up to that level. Education doesn't end in a classroom.
Raise children who are better than you. Not richer. Not more obedient. Better more honest, more aware, more empathetic. If every generation genuinely improves on the last, one day we won't need to have this conversation at all.
A country does not become stronger when its borders expand.
It becomes stronger when its people do.
Eco signing off