Cowards live, but why?

“A cowardly man
thinks he will ever live,
if warfare he avoids;
but old age will
give him no peace,
though spears may spare him.”

Above consists of the 16th piece of advise given to us from the vikings. It’s meaning is pretty clear even in old English, but basically says this: A coward thinks he will live longer if he avoids conflict and battles; but he shall gain no peace from growing old, even if avoiding conflict keeps him alive. In today’s slang, this may translate into a rough usage of “yolo” before bungee jumping of a bridge over a shallow river, but there’s so much more complexity to it than that. The word “warfare” is referred to in the text, but I don’t see it as completely limiting the meaning to battles, but rather simple decisions and risks as well. Take the narrator from the poem The Road not Taken by Robert Frost. When put in the position to choose which road that he will go down, we as readers see the meaning behind this advice given. The narrator could easily have picked the road that everyone else seemed to travel, for it virtually guaranteed safety and smooth treks. However, as most of us know, the narrator instead decides to take “the one less traveled by.” We as humans often weigh our decisions on a risk/reward basis. Basically, does the reward outweigh the risk? If so, the decision is made. However, many people fail to see the the risk is the reward, and vice versa. Of course living by safety and guarantees will land you further in life, but where’s the risk? Risks in life are rewards within themselves, and taking the risks is what makes us human in the first place. You may be questioning the validity of this side of the argument. If so, refer back to The Road not Taken, the narrator chose risk over safety, and “that has made all the difference.”

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536