Well...someone has to

       "Someone has to, may as well be me."I have held to this philosophy as a core principle in life. This is what provides unbending courage to take on the jobs no one else wants, the one to raise my hand if there must be a volunteer. This principle is one I don't question.

Think of the magician on stage, asking for a volunteer- a shaky audience sitting in stark silence. You can almost hear the crowd thinking to themselves, "Who's gonna go first? Not me." But, there I am without delay, hand up. Now do I 'want' to volunteer to be sawed in half? No, not particularly. I don't question it though, I just raise my hand..

My endeavor to educate people about their bill of rights (yawn*) came less from inspiration and more from the idea, "Someone must, it may as well be me." In a classroom setting, I apply this same principle when I ask a question no one else wants to ask. Inevitably, there are many other students who had the same question.

Is this courage? Is this initiative? Maybe stupidity, because being the first one to try something new, or the first one to broach a difficult subject comes with risk. I just figure, in all of humanity if there was no one willing to take one for the team, then we'd have missed out on a lot of great discoveries.

Now I'm not looking for a gold star. At most, the advantage to myself simply cancels out the risk of going first. Truly, I feel this attitude often opens doors for everyone else. It gives others the courage to participate. One hand goes up, and suddenly everyone has their hand up. By the end of the show people fight over who volunteers next.

To walk blindly forward into the unknown can be terrifying and if anyone thought too much of it, none of us would. So without questioning, without forethought, I'll jump. Like your first dive into the lake in summer. You know damn well it may be cold,  and you could count down or whine about it, but unless you look forward to regret, you know you just have to GO.