Scared Straight

After thinking about my day today, I've decided to do the blog on: Having Fear and Being Worried.(Not exactly a glamorous topic but hang in there with this one.)  My idea for today's topic came to me today when I was playing disc golf at Veterans Park.  I started on hole ten and knew that probably 80% of that course was in wooded areas.  Usually this wouldn't have bothered me but, I was alone and the first thing that popped in my mind when I was looking for my 4th shot of the day(terrible drive on my part by the way) was, "man what if I see a snake.  I would be alone and no one else is out here and if I get bit I might die."(this is a little farfetched but not too much.)  Snakes are by far my biggest fear. I don't like them dead, alive, rubber, plastic or even on tv.  If I am ever really close to one, I run as far away as I can before I feel safe again.  I think I would die from shock before I ever even got bit by one.(I don't understand how people are more scared of spiders than snakes, if a spiders near you just step on it. It does suck though walking in an eerie place and planting your face in a web and then acting like a buffoon trying to get the cobwebs off of you.)  I also have a small fear of drowning.(I'm not a strong swimmer..still hold my nose a bunch..I'm forever in debt to Casey Stricklin for saving my life on my High School senior trip in Cancun, Mexico.  If he didn't pull me up from the treacherous undertoe there then I might not be typing this blog..seriously never been more scared or worried in my life, I even told Casey stuff like "tell everybody I love them man"  He laughs about it to this day.  To be quite honest, I've been scared playing the game Resident Evil with the lights off before.(You don't believe me try it, its no picnic.) As for being worried, I thought about this at lunch today when I was having a legion tryout meeting with Coach Kirk.  We were both just worried trying to make decisions to pick our team.  On to Good, Bad and Funny.
Fear and Worry

1. Good:  Fear can make you stronger by trying to overcome it.(I'm never gonna overcome my fear of snakes no matter what kind of program someone could come up with to help me do it.)  I have overcome some fears throughout my life though.  I used so be shy and not want to speak on stage, so my parents encouraged me to try out for the of the Cowardly Lion in Milam's 5th grade presentation of The Wizard of Oz.  I got the part and did really well in the play, if you can actually get critiqued on that.  I also parlayed this into a second place finish in the same school's spelling bee.(I should have won but I had 102 fever and I my put-out word was electroiluminescence and Candace Ready's was opera, so you can understand my bitterness here.  She wasn't and truly isn't a better speller than me.  I'm really gonna be humbled if someone finds spelling errors in my blog from now on.  Great job Mac, way to put a target on your back.)  Worrying is good in that you must care about what you are worrying about.  Some people are better than others about not worrying to much and I feel like I'm one of them depending on the situation.
2. Bad:  A bad thing about fear and worry is that most don't ever think realistically about what they are scared of.(I mean for some reason I always think that a snake is going to bite me on the butt when I'm sitting on the toilet.  I'm smarter than that but it still bothers me sometimes.)  Also fearing and worrying about stuff you can't control is a waste of time.(Example: Your kids being in an accident on a road trip where you are not present.  I can't imagine how hard this is to avoid as a parent but you can't shelter your kids forever by not letting them do anything)  Also, another thing that is stupid is worrying about what other people think.(I've been guilty of this before and still am sometimes and I know everyone else is but once you get past it, you feel so much better about yourself...If you need help with this the next time you worry about what someone thinks of you say to yourself "how much do you worry about people thinking your awesome?" It will put everything in perspective because the answer is not at all and makes you realize that all the stuff you worry about is irrational.
3. Funny: When you scare someone in a house like the notorious Jared Koon.  He prides himself on scaring me(among many others) in random places and corners of the world.  If you follow him on twitter then I'm sure you've seen his footage.  I didn't want to peruse through his twitvids so here is an example of some of the type stuff he would do. 

No link for today
Thanks for reading folks
McKinley