Hey, Watch This!

If you’re a guy, you’ve heard this before.?One of your good buddies is about to do something “exciting” and probably very stupid.?As a kid, I was about to learn the sage advice of facing your fears. ?Hey, watch this!?

When I was in grade school, people told me I would probably end up in the Army.?Was it because I was a bad kid, or I had a rigid personality, or was I looking for a bit of excitement??Maybe.?I was always looking for something.

One day, my friend Wilson and I walked along an old trestle railroad bridge.?Wilson said, “Hey, watch this!” as he jumped 20 feet off the bridge into the river below.?We were eight years old.?When Wilson hit the water, he screamed.?I panicked.?I thought he died on impact, so I ran to town as fast as my legs could carry me.

Young men where I lived had cars, and several drove out to the bridge.?I looked over the edge to see Wilson below, but he was not there.?“Holy cow, the river took him.”?I thought the Sheriff would throw me in jail; he was one mean SOB.?I thought wrongly that the young men would throw me in the river for abandoning Wilson.?They just laughed.

Wilson had landed in the river and promptly broke his right arm.?He barely escaped drowning, and since he was right-handed, he had to learn to write with his left.?To this day, we still laugh about that whole affair, which is why we are guys.?Our wives today don’t find it funny at all.

Living was about overcoming your fear of things.?We knew about the danger of what we did, but we did it anyway.?We weren’t na?ve at all.?We knew there were risks.?But we were more alive, fully self-conscious, than ever.?We understood our limitations and how we might get hurt or die.?Yes, we were afraid, but we would jump off bridges anyway.

We discovered that fear helped keep us smart.?We might not see the dangers and prevent caution if we weren’t scared.?By facing our fears, we became braver each time we went to the train trestle and looked over the edge into the abyss of the river.?We were still frightened, but we were braver.

We faced our fears, and we pursued adventure.?I have the scars to prove it, and so does Wilson.?I did join the Army years later.?I joined because I was looking for adventure.

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Please read Brig. Gen. Satterfield’s newest book, “55 Rules for a Good Life” (2022), on Amazon.