Don't retreat, reload

I started this blog post literally oooh 10 seconds ago with a plan to write about this neat little phrase I'd stumbled onto and which I planned to use as a little bit of a mantra to get myself out of my funk and ready for the decade ahead.

That phrase was don't retreat, reload.

When I read it in some random novel last week something about this phrase struck me, the way things do from time to time, and I couldn't quite dislodge it from my head. In the moment it seemed to sum up everything I want to change about myself: to be less of a pussy, work harder for what I want, advance towards something instead of running away from everything.

Then I googled it.

Why? Why did I google it. Couldn't I just have been happy with my little phrase? It made me feel good, couldn't I just keep on feeling good about it? But no. No I could not. Because the way the phrase was presented in the book I read was along the lines of - "As they say 'don't retreat, reload'." As who says, I wondered, assuming in my ignorance the book was quoting some wise old sage or other. Then the dream died. Because once I turned to google to answer my question this is the first thing I read about this beautiful little phrase of mine:

Is there a more incendiary, compact, unapologetic cover for domestic vigilantes than “Don’t Retreat, Reload”? Though domestic terrorism occurred before and after Palin’s pandering war cry, her loaded gun imagery decoying as political rhetoric, gave itchy-fingered zealots free passes when “feeling endangered.” Overall, what the Bush Doctrine distilled into unilateral pre-emptive perfidy, executed by Rumsfeld’s dire “shock and awe,” then justified by Cheney’s One Per Cent Doctrine, was domesticated by this in-your-face mandate from a presumptive national leader.

So... apparently I'm quoting Sarah Palin these days. That... happened. I - and excuse me if I start sobbing while I say this - actually had a reaction to something Sarah Palin said that didn't include wild rage or projectile vomiting. 

No, don't mind me, I'm off to Plath myself in the oven. 'Tis electric so I may be some time.