You Can't Be The Best If You're Dead

Ok, so upon reading this blog's title, you probably thought, "Wow, that's somewhat disturbing," haha. But before you draw conclusions, pay attention to this thought process that led me to said thought. So, I was researching online about career opportunities in the military because I've been really conflicted lately about which one to pursue; I knew I wanted to be in the action, like in Infantry, but I could not decide whether to go to college and become an officer with better pay or to simply enlist, go through basic training and advanced individual training, and be in right then and there with lesser pay and rank. I apologize for the previous digressions and the upcoming one, but they are necessary.
Now, you're probably wondering why on Earth someone would want to enlist in the military and risk their life when they could essentially go to college for free and still do that job, except a little more safely. There is, however, a reasonable answer. The reason I was strongly considering enlisting was because I felt deep down that, by enlisting and being a private for a few years, I could better understand what a good leader in the military was and how to become one. I also really wanted to experience basic training, but that's beside the point. I felt that, if I enlisted first, I would become a better leader down the road by being led first. However, after researching the training programs for Army officer, I felt confident that they would prepare me enough to lead soldiers in a war zone as some type of combat operations officer. In other words, I would be a Lieutenant and would lead combat troops into a fight. Plus, the trainings to be an officer also seem like fun.
So, upon this realization, I decided that I would be an officer in the Army, as I had often times decided on before. The next step was to decide exactly what I wanted to do as an officer. Officers in the Army can be parts of several main branches, so I had to decide which one best fit me. Over the years, I've developed a sort of perfectionist personality; in better, more fitting terms, I strive for excellence. So, in the military as in any other thing I attempt, I want to be the best of the best if at all possible. I also want to actually be in the bulk of the war and in the action, for reasons I don't understand. This is my main reason, and it very simple; it hasn't changed at all for years: I want to lead men into battle. It's as simple as that.

Infantry

I compared these preferences with the different branches of the Army, and I came out with three possible careers that I might want to undertake. They are Infantry Officer, Military Intelligence Officer, and Special Forces Officer. After finding these main careers that I preferred, I put them in order of greatest to least preference and they came out like so:

Military Intelligence

1. Special Forces Officer
2. Infantry Officer
3. MI Officer

Special Forces

I have pretty much decided that I really want to be a special forces officer for many reasons. For one, your tasks that you have to accomplish can vary greatly, and I don't want to be doing the same thing every day. Also, there's a good chance I would be doing field work over 50% of the time, and it would most likely be physical and I would most likely lead a small group of men, which I would really prefer.

Airborne

Rangers

Anyway, back to the title. I knew I wanted to be a Special Forces Officer, so I started thinking about the different challenges that I would be faced with along the way. Along the road to becoming one, I would have to go through a series of potentially dangerous trainings, including jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, repelling from helicopters, climbing precipices, and having an actual painful interrogation. I also knew that during different missions, there would be a high risk of me being injured or possibly killed. So, with all of this in mind, I concluded that I will have to keep a cool, calm, reasonable mind if I want to come out of any of it alive. Although I want to be the best of the best by being a Special Forces Officer, I would have to keep myself in check to prevent my head from getting to big and doing something stupid. So, I came upon the title of this blog in my head. If I try too hard to be the best and end up doing something ridiculous and stupid, I could very well die. And, if you're dead, you can't be the best now can you? So that's essentially how that thought crossed through my head. Basically I'm going to try to remember the phrase to remind myself to stay calm and keep common sense in my thought processes.
I could've told you all how I've been lately, and the Ravens Steelers game, and a plethora of other things, just all of them are pretty much trivial to me right now compared to this. Don't worry, though, y'all will get more posts soon =).