Badassery Runs in our Veins

(image via http://youandsaturation.com/typography-inspiration-009/)

While dealing with a bout of the flu, I watched the first episode of 'America: The Story of Us' on Netflix with my kids (if you don't have a Netflix account, you can purchase the series here).  This first episode was all about firsts - the first people who lived in America (American Indians), the first Europeans who arrived on American soil, the first colonies, etc.  Each group had its hardships to overcome.  Each group made mistakes.  However, when the Boston Massacre occurred and the colonists said enough is enough, the shit hit the fan and these guys decided they weren't having it any more.  They were a rag-tag group of merchants and farmers fighting in a quickly-trained militia against the toughest, best-trained military in the world at that time, the British Army, a.k.a. the Red Coats.  And somehow, they won.

Badassery.

I couldn't help but think about how I could apply this same spirit of Badassery in my own life.  How in the hell did we win?  We should be a British nation, by all accounts.  Some claim that God was on our side.  I'm not going to speak for God in this instance.  Instead, I'm going to try my best to peer into the hearts of my colonial ancestors.  The advantage they had over the Red Coats wasn't training, weaponry or anything else that money can buy.  They had heart.  They had courage.  They believed wholeheartedly in their cause.  And it wasn't just white guys - there were even freed Africans who fought alongside their fellow colonists.  They knew they were fighting on the side of right and they wanted Freedom more than anything else and they weren't taking no for an answer.  

What if I did that.  Every day.

What if I approached everything I believed in, everything I set out to do with the same spirit of Badassery as the American colonists.  What if I didn't take no for an answer.  What if every time I lost a battle I got up and fought again.  Just imagine what I could do.  Imagine what WE could do.  WE as the human race.  What if WE believed in love, justice, equality, and peace and pursued those things with the same spirit of Badassery?  Imagine that for a moment.

-L