A few months ago, I was on a flight and an old woman was there with her daughter.
The woman wanted to have a fruit platter for her meal but either the daughter forgot to book it, or the flight forgot to onboard it – whatever the case, her meal wasn’t there.
All I can say is the old lady REALLY wanted to have that fruit platter because she spent the next hour making a big ruckus about not getting treated “fairly” and getting pissed off at the air hostess.
The air hostess kept explaining the situation to her but she wasn’t having any of it. She kept screaming as if the air hostess were personally responsible for not having her fruit.
In the minds of everyone else in the plane, she was a nuisance old lady pissed off over not getting to eat fruit. In her mind though, she was in a proper life or death crisis.
To her, not getting a bit of fruit was a crisis big enough to get extremely concerned and pissed off over.
I was sitting a few seats behind her, and as the air hostess walked by, she looked at me and shrugged, like “hey, what can you do”.
When was the last time you were exposed to real danger?
I don’t mean dangers like the danger of getting fired from a job, I mean real danger like the dangers of life and death.
When was the last time you felt the fear and danger that you could die or get significantly physically hurt?
I can tell you countless experiences where I felt real fear and could have died:
I got lost in a forest.
(Click the link above to read the full story)
A rickshaw I was in got rammed from behind by a truck.
The driver was drunk as hell. I was very shaken up and had some injuries (my neck and back hurt for a week). For a second, I thought this was the end. Thankfully, and long while later – I’m still here!
My car’s tyre blew up in the middle of a forest reserve with nothing but wilderness (and wild animals) around for 40 km in any direction.
I drove 5 hours at night on a mountain road where I couldn’t see more than a few meters ahead of me. Didn’t encounter any civilization and stopping wasn’t an option because I didn’t want to risk getting robbed or killed.
I was afraid not only of accidentally falling off the cliff but also of getting robbed or killed. If you get killed by bandits on a mountain route, you never get found.
There are also plenty of other examples that I don’t have photos of:
- A doctor misdiagnosed me with end stage kidney disease and made me think I was going to die soon. Turns out it was nothing and I’m completely fine.
- Climbed a very rickety mountain ladder in a storm. Turning back was not an option (climbing down wet rocks is a mistake).
- Crossed a narrow ridge between two mountains with a lot of wind and a 1000+ feet drop on each side.
- Almost got bitten by a snake.
- Escaped a building that caught fire.
- Etc.
Update: I found a picture of the ladder
The Importance of Facing REAL Dangers in Life
People who don’t face real physical dangers in life from time to time develop a warped mentality where they start over-stressing little things that don’t matter.
The mind when not used to real dangers will invent dangers where they don’t exist.
This is the real reason why you see a lot of “anxious” and fearful people in today’s society. People who are afraid and stressed out by little things.
I mean things like overthinking and worrying about what someone else thinks of you, or stressing about being late for a flight, or treating not getting to eat a fruit platter on a plane as if it was a real crisis.
Go out in the world and face some real dangers.
It makes you stop caring about meaningless things.
– Harsh Strongman
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