The Joy of Desperation

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How to Survive A Grizzly Attack

Source The art of manliness.com

1. Carry bear pepper spray. Experts recommend that hikers in bear country carry with them bear pepper spray. UDAP bear pepper spray is a highly concentrated capsaicin spray that creates a large cloud. This stuff will usually stop a bear in it’s tracks.

2. Don’t run. When you run, the bear thinks you’re prey and will continue chasing you, so stand your ground. And don’t think you can out run a bear. Bears are fast. They can reach speeds of 30 mph. Unless you’re an Olympic sprinter, don’t bother running.
3. Drop to the ground in the fetal position and cover the back of your neck with your hands. If you don’t have pepper spray or the bear continues to charge even after the spray, this is your next best defense. Hit the ground immediately and curl into the fetal position.
4. Play dead. Grizzlies will stop attacking when they feel there’s no longer a threat. If they think you’re dead, they won’t think you’re threatening. Once the bear is done tossing you around and leaves, continue to play dead. Grizzlies are known for waiting around to see if their victim will get back up.

How to Survive a Riptide

Source: Loving-Long-Island.com

Over 100 people drown in rip currents every year. The tragedy is compounded by the fact that rip currents are so very easy to avoid, and very easy to escape if you do happen to get caught up in one.

Rip currents are sometimes mistakenly referred to as riptides and undertow. These names are misnomers because although rip currents pull swimmers away from shore they have nothing to do with the tides and they do not pull swimmers under.

The real danger with rip currents is not that you're getting pulled away from shore, but how you react.

Most swimmers will panic and try to swim against the current. They will tire quickly and soon go under.

Desperation. Utter hopelessness. End of the rope. All expressions we are probably familiar with and unfortunately we have probably felt at one point or another. Grizzly bear attacks and rip currents both prove an important truth of the Universe though. It is when we know enough not to struggle against the thing that's trying to kill us that we are released from it. In actuality, sometimes it isn't even knowing enough that allows us to stop the fight, it is being exhausted, broken, ready to quit, roll over and die.

Alcoholics and drug addicts find the strength to get sober after they have hit bottom.

Bad relationships can be healed or ended after everyone has been emotionally drained and has no more fight for their personal agenda left in them.

People with eating disorders often find the strength to get healthy once they have gotten physically so sick that they almost loose their lives.

People will find a faith and a God of their understanding after they have been too tired, too lonely, too hopeless for too long; once they are exhausted and ready to quit.

It's almost as if, in all cases from grizzly attack to addiction, life wants to restore itself, healing wants to occur, but it cannot until we stop fighting. Until we know enough to stop or until we are so tired and spent that we have no more energy and we just roll over and accept what may come. That acceptance, that surrender, is our salvation.

We try so hard to avoid those times when we hit a wall, when we are broken down, when we have no strength to go on. Those things we struggle so hard against are actually blessed opportunities to witness how great and powerful the Universe is. We are blessed when we are broken because the fight is out of us. We are blessed when we are exhausted and empty because without our own agenda and plans in the way, Life and Love can take over and save us, resurrect us, bring us back from the brink of extinction that we are so sure we will fall into. It is those times and situations when we are at our lowest that we are near the Holy, vulnerable and ready to accept the Universe's healing love and grace.

Desperation is not to be fought against. It is to be welcomed, celebrated, even hoped for sometimes. If it is always darkest before the dawn, bring on the darkness today so that we may dance in the light tomorrow.

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