What Kind of Realities Can We Face?

I would think that it would be a coward's motto. "I can't face this", "I can't face that" and "I couldn't live with myself if..." How many people remember when such phrasing would have earned you contempt from most listeners? How many of us remember when they started shoving that very thing down our throats and treated us with malice and if possible destruction if we balked at it? Moral and physical courage seem to have fallen into disuse and even contempt.

People have to face things. On what basis do we keep nursing our mental injuries? When I had to handle my first dead person as part of a job as a nurse, I simply faced it and did as I was instructed. Then when I learned what I was supposed to do, I washed them according to protocol and that was that. It was upsetting and frightening at first. I faced that. I went in knowing that it would be a problem and I faced it. I took the pain. I lived with it.

Cowboys don't turn away from their jobs when they see a friend being killed by a wild horse or a bull. They don't try to lock everything away and revamp all their systems and rules every time someone dies. It would make them crazy and paralyze them if they did. Deaths on the job and at the rodeo are a part of the life. The people who say they want to make us "safe" want us to be paralyzed cowards who can't do anything to help themselves. They also want us to do nothing but what they tell us to do.

Animal rights activists even have a book that says kill yourself if you can't face life. I would rather say pucker up and face it. Don't let the naysayers intimidate you, don't let me intimidate you or play you, don't let someone tell you that you are an idiot if you face it, be proud of being who you are and what you do, and live in that strength. You're not encouraging people to take insane risks. You are encouraging them to live. That's what I want to tell the world. Even a few years of actually living are worth more than enough to compensate for dying in a horrible accident. I'll even bid three months, or if it's really good, a single day.

You have to take risks to live.