How To Be Brave

I am destined to be in this world for a short time. I can look around and read grave markers, if it takes that. Am I too blunt? Sometimes I can be. Be let's face it, we have fourscore years, if we live to a ripe old age of 80 years. What will be done with it?

We all have the same basic conditions to work with: we eat, sleep, take baths, cuss about the rent and have near-aneurysms, when we think about the price of gas. We are all afraid, we fear, but it is what you fear most that will make or break you. Most people fear dying above all other things. It is understandable, dying is a tough thing to do and yet, we will all do it. I will die and I know it, but it does not bother me very much. It used to though, I went through some agonies with that and I had a deep fear of it.

I developed some trump cards to deal with it: I became a Christian and then I made up my mind to live a brave life, God is with me in my life and will be there in my death--etc. Thinking that way really did clear out the trash in my mind. I do not give room to cowardice, it ain't allowed in my mind. All that I will ever ask for, is that I not die a foolish death. There is a summary of how I developed courage.

To have courage: think of yourself as brave and daring, able to handle anything dangerous. When you do that, you are halfway to home base. Next, practice in your mind what you will do if faced with danger. After all, if there is no danger involved, there is likewise no courage involved.

My mother was brave and she showed me how to overcome fear. I walked over top of raging creeks while they were at flood stage, because that is what I had to do. My whole family walked over that railroad bridge together. It was one of the bravest things that I have done in life and we all did it. I did it because my mother was with me and I trusted her with my life: we all did it that way.

I am pretty bold because of that and other things that I had to do in life. I had to fight bullies in school and no one would help me. So I learned that the fight was my own. It always has been, sometimes I knew it, sometimes I did not. After that was cleared up, I became a pretty good fighter. My brother and I would wrestle in the yard and that was some of the hardest fighting in my life. And we were not even fighting for real, only wrestling. He was as strong as a bull and deaf. I nearly got strangled by him more than once, because he could not hear me when I said "I give!"

Today, I am an excellent wrestler: because he nearly choked me to death on occasion and because I landed on rocks at times and because he put me on my head, etc. It was rough and tumble and it helped to show me that I could beat a strong man, because I was capable and pretty strong myself. It dispelled fear and instilled courage. It began a life wherein I will not surrender to punks. And I have beaten some trained wrestlers in my day, because I was not afraid to try.

Today, I am old and fat--but--it is a very bad idea to attack me. I am still as brave as I ever was and I do not surrender lightly. I don't do it intellectually or physically or morally. I do not make distinctions between an attack physically or a personal attack of the ad hominem variety (that is a personal attack, always vicious and snide in its make-up). It is usually political or religious in make-up and I do not surrender ground to anyone who makes that sort of assault.

America needs that in men, she is being attacked. Women need it too, since they live in America and the world in general. They need brave men and they need to be brave themselves. It is always good to be that and it is never good to be craven. The distinctions have been blurred between what is good and what is bad. That is another attack that has been waged in this nation; the good is being categorized as suspect and the bad is being inserted.

To sum things up, I have never lived in a boring period of time and I suppose that I never will. Today I am required to stand my ground, call 'em like I see 'em, and to be there to stem a tide. I can do that, I have been doing it all along. I am happy when I know that I have been brave and not a sycophant. I am one of the kindest men that I know; but sometimes to be kind and understanding, is to aid in my own destruction. I lay down at night and I sleep peacefully, because I do not fear.

But let me mention God one more time, without Him I would not have courage. There are too many terrifying things going on. Something is being let loose in this world and it is the Devil. And no, it hasn't always been like this, I did not lock my doors when I was young, but I lock them now. I am brave but I know that something is there and he is a scary somebody. But, he does not matter in the end, he has a small window of time to work with.

Ha,ha! I win in the end! Look at me, look at me! I'm all brave and stuff! That is how I live my life, I am all brave and stuff. Be like me and you will be brave. Be like the world and you will always be afraid. I am not the only one that thinks this way. There are others, with any luck you will meet some of them. And that will be a good thing in your life.

God bless.