“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” This quote by Mahatma Gandhi is the first thing that pops in my head when thinking about the deadly attacks in Paris. Don’t get me wrong, the whole event that went down is awful. The fact that many innocent people died for no evident reason gets me fired up, and I’m burning with the desire for vengeance. How are we to act in response to these events?

The first thing we need to do is slow down and think. When has attacking ever done anyone any good at all? Never, right? We’ve gone completely blind because of our impertinence. For every attack that’s carried out against our allies, we return fire with ten times the voracity. They take an eye, and in response, we take their whole head. Much like a hydra, two heads grow back in place. The attacks become more brazen, more aggressive and more devastating.

The recent assault in Paris is a caveat of what is to come. We can’t keep doing this. On both sides, the attacks keep increasing in violence and scale. Our blind eyes make it easy to lash out in fury, but in the process, our vision only becomes more clouded. I believe we must wait and seek peace.

I can’t even imagine how hard it is to make the decision to not seek revenge for the evil that’s happening. I have no concept of how difficult it is to risk the safety of a country just to reach out for peace. No idea at all. But I believe that it’s in our best interest just to calm down and wait. We must wait and let our eyes heal. We have to give our eyes a chance to open, a chance to see what’s truly going on, before it all spins out of control.