Fear

During this journey of WLS, one observation has become clear to me...a great many of the people are more fearful of dying then anything else.
I guess because that was never one of my concerns, this baffles me. From the moment we take our first breath we begin the dying process, because after birth that is the only sure thing in our future. Life in itself is a crap shoot and if we live in fear of dying, we will fail to live life to the fullest. People seem to feel that their chance of dying during RNY is greater then dying with Band surgery. To that I say, if it's your time to go, you're going to die no matter what surgery you have. People die from infections after minor surgeries on hang nails. Shit happens!
Obesity is a killer in itself, how come people don't fear that? How come with every pound we gain, we don't say to people "OMG this weight is going to kill me.". How come we don't learn to look at harmful foods as a murder weapon that will eventually kill us if we over indulge ?The human mind fascinates me.. We can justify just about anything...but when it comes to something that will kill us, we are very selective in our fears. Example: We fear we could die during elective surgery, we ponder it we wonder if a slightly more invasive surgery will make the difference between life and death...But we will elect to get in our car, with no worry what so ever that we will arrive safely at our destination. Yet more people die in traffic accidents then from WLS. We will climb up on a chair to change a light bulb and never consider the statistics involving death risk within our own home (unintentional injuries are the 5th leading cause of death )
So what do we do? Do we stay home, sit on the couch and pray falling blue ice doesn't come through the ceiling and kill us ? When push comes to shove, we just have to let go of that fear. Take for example those people who have chosen to have the Band because of the risk factor...then somewhere down the road NEED to have a revision to by-pass. What are the risk factors for Two surgeries rather then one ? Is that risk factor still a fear? If so then why not just have the Band removed? My guess is because the fear of obesity killing them is greater then the fear of dying in surgery or because of it.
I live every day of my life, I enjoy each new morning, I make a point of learning at least one thing during the course of my day and I try to touch at least one person in a positive way and accomplish at least one task. None of us will live forever, although it seems I may have too just to finish all I want to do. When my time comes, I hope to meet it with the same overwhelming intrigue as I have each day of my life...Just a new adventure.
I wish I could sit and hold each persons hand that fears this unknown factor in all our lives. It hurts me when I see people dwell on the risk factor and I want to tell them , until they can let that go, set that fear aside and concentrate on all the positive factors about this surgery...they shouldn't have it. NO ONE should enter into ANY surgery if they even think for one second that they may die. If there was ever a time for positive thinking, it is the day of surgery.
I am sure that fear will always be expressed, regardless of anything I say here. Worry seems to be a human trait that goes right along with Fear and that will be the case until the soul is at peace and faith runs deep enough to overcome it.