Stop being a P***y

As you might already know, I love to click photos and many times I’m going for long walks only so that I can capture different things along the way. Wait, this sounds like another of mine photography-inspired posts..so what’s the title about? Let’s take a step back..
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“Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything"
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Okay, now we're talking.
Quoted above were the words we heard from our presidential candidate last week. Well, they are actually from the last decade, but its reasonable to assume that if he wasn't running for presidency today (thus, not pretending to having changed), he might as well have said it last week.
Now, I get it that it was just a locker room talk and given how the average guys in media behave (not saying they are right), it shouldn’t be taken out of proportion. Moreover, I don’t want to make this post centered around politics. My point is to take the attention this word has gotten and spin it into an idiomatic use of the word. Back to the story..

​As you might already know, I love to click photos and many times I’m going for long walks only so that I can capture different things along the way. I mostly click nature, cityscapes, and built environment. Don’t often do portraits. Not because I don't like them (I love them), but because I hesitate to ask someone if I could click them. I know many would be ready for it, and some would even be flattered, but I try to avoid the awkward interaction, and end up missing a Kodak moment (more like Canon moment for me). This has happened tons of times.
Sisters blowing bubbles together.
Little kids taking a splash in the logan circle fountain.
Elderly running up the rocky steps.
Puppies scrambling on the Schuylkill River trail.
Red lipsticks lining up by el vez.
I've missed all those opportunities. Why? I got to know the answer a couple weeks back.

​Last to last Sunday, I was again on one of those click-o-walks, and there was this girl walking in front of me - sleek figure, long legs, slim-fit dark grey jeans, long and sharp hair partly covering up a white jacket, the back of which read “Don't be a pussy”.
We were both walking along 18th, approaching Ben Franklin, where the red light gave us a moment to spare. As I was approaching the cross section, I saw laterally- a herd of cars who were at a standstill, while the traffic light was flashing green for them. It was one of those hand-and-eye coordination gap moments where the drivers saw the green light, and had not pressed the gas paddles yet.
I instantly saw how precious a moment that was - with her jacket in the foreground splashing that strong message, and those cars at standstill on a green light in the background, it would’ve made for a wonderful message. I had a chance to instantly click her that second in time - and maybe tell her afterwards. I thought for a moment, and a moment was too much time to take. Cars started thrusting, one after the other, till the flock was gone and the light was red again (for them), and green for us. I crossed the road. Upon reaching the other side, I looked back - she hadn’t moved, maybe she was waiting for someone. I continued walking and thought more about the message on her jacket and how that could be an answer for why I’ve missed all the opportunities I listed above - the little sister twins, kids in a fountain, elders running up, and the line of red lips - because..yes, maybe because I was being a p****y. Nobody likes to admit that, but I will. You should become aware of that and admit it too.

In the connotation of the word (more like meaning a wuss), every one of us has a part or a front, where we are being exactly that - fearful of something that prevents us from doing something else that we love. In this case, it was fear of an awkward interaction. Now, socially, I’ve come a long way and am comfortable doing many things that I wasn’t some years ago. I identify myself as an extrovert now (big change, vis-a-vis 5 years in rewind), go to weird places, talk to strangers, explore the other sides of my interest, etc. - but this fear of awkward interaction has stayed in some aspects. You might find you feel the same in some situations too. It’s time to overcome this, to let us do things we would be proud of later. Just look around and think how wonderful the world around us would be, if everyone did over come this very fear to start with -

• Hillary Clinton won’t deny or lessen the importance of her deleting emails, or of her mis-steps on Benghazi. She would accept that she did a wrong thing, and was indeed careless about it. She would explain the conditions that led her to do so - why it seemed right for some reason to do so then, but looks very wrong now in hindsight.
• Mr. Trump - rather than denying the tapes and declaring himself as the person who respects women the most (“nobody respects women more than me”), he would face the awkward admission that he’s probably not the best person to respect women, in traditional sense. But he has an extreme background, which he has made big efforts to neutralize.
• Rather than lying about the position candidates took in past (On Iraq war, TPP, etc) - they would swallow a bitter pill and admit that they once took a certain view which is no longer valid, and why - like facts, opinions can and should evolve over time, and that’s perfectly okay. ​​

​See? Just in the examples of political arena, so many things would look great, if we stopped being a wuss about not wanting to face an awkward interaction. It would almost always help the case of ones doing so. In this case, candidates would do better by admitting, because denial doesn’t erase doubts from a voter’s mind, but admission of not being perfect could gain you sympathy. In my case, I could’ve clicked her and politely showed her the photo later and explained why I did it and offered to share the photo with her, with letting her decide if she wants me to delete it. Much better than not clicking it in first place.
Whatever one pretends, from me and you, to those who explore the space and run countries - everyone, on some front, is a wuss. If we could just stop being that, we could break the barriers of what might be holding us back. So, let’s grab them (dreams) from (being) the (a) pussy. We can do anything.

Foreword from the other direction: When I spotted the girl and went through the jacket thought, the trump tapes hadn’t made news yet. When they did, I connected the coincidence and decided to write about the idiomatic message. Right out from the jacket, I knew what would make for a perfect title, but I wondered if that would be a little bit too extreme. But then, if someone who’s claiming to be able to run the country can say it publicly, why can a nobody not write it down on his own blog? So, I stopped being a p***y about it.
P.S.: All opinions are ofcourse only mine, with no relations to any organization to disclose.
PC: NROStatic, Alicdn