Marriage was once understood as a commitment that required sacrifice. Husbands and wives argued, disappointed each other, went through dry spells, and occasionally wondered whether they had married the wrong person. None of those experiences automatically meant the marriage had failed. Today, many therapists tell clients the opposite. As a practicing psychotherapist, I’ve watched my profession gradually redefine what counts as a healthy marriage. Instead of asking whether a relationship is fundamentally sound, many therapists encourage clients to audit it. Is every emotional need being met? Do you feel consistently validated? Is your partner helping you become the best version of yourself? Those questions sound reasonable on their own. Together, they turn marriage into a performance review, and most marriages, evaluated that way, will fail. Marriage begins with a vow. Too much of today’s therapeutic culture treats it like a satisfaction survey. I’ve worked with couples who came to me after months, sometimes years, of absorbing messages from other therapists, social media, and self-styled relationship influencers. By the time they arrived, ordinary marital frustrations had already been reframed as attachment injuries, emotional labor imbalances, or proof that a partner was no longer “showing up.” Clients often arrive speaking the language of therapy culture: “Protect your peace.” “You attract what you tolerate.” “This relationship isn’t serving you anymore.” Those aren’t conclusions they’ve reached. They’re scripts they’ve learned from therapists, social media, and self-appointed relationship influencers. “Protect your peace” may be the slogan that best captures what’s gone wrong. It sounds like wisdom, but too often it’s permission to avoid difficult conversations, stop tolerating ordinary imperfection, and make personal comfort the measure of a marriage. A good therapist doesn’t encourage anxious patients to organize their lives around avoiding discomfort. Marriage deserves the same wisdom. The problem isn’t that concepts such as attachment injuries or emotional labor are always wrong. Sometimes they accurately describe serious problems. The problem is that therapists have become remarkably good at turning ordinary marital dissatisfaction into psychological pathology, then treating the diagnosis as a reason to leave. Therapy once emphasized resilience, responsibility, and learning to tolerate frustration. Today it often encourages people to treat dissatisfaction as evidence that something in their lives must change. Marriage is sometimes the first casualty. The language of self-care has reinforced the shift. Healthy boundaries matter. Leaving an abusive relationship saves lives. No serious person disputes that. But those ideas are now routinely applied to ordinary marital conflict. Feeling criticized becomes emotional invalidation. Compromise becomes people-pleasing. Patience becomes settling. Once every unpleasant feeling demands immediate relief, commitment starts looking like pathology. Therapists know emotions fluctuate. Patients struggling with anxiety or depression are taught not to make major decisions based solely on how they feel in the moment. Yet that principle is too often abandoned when the subject becomes marriage. Temporary unhappiness is treated as evidence that the relationship itself is broken rather than something two committed people can work through. Children are often an afterthought in these conversations, and that should concern every therapist. Most divorces do not involve abuse, violence, addiction, or betrayal. They involve two disappointed people who have lost sight of why they married in the first place. Before encouraging divorce, therapists should ask harder questions. Have both spouses genuinely tried to repair the marriage? Are expectations realistic? What will this decision mean for the children? Children don’t need perfect parents. They need parents who know how to repair conflict, keep commitments, and show that love survives seasons of disappointment. The irony should embarrass the profession. Effective therapists routinely teach people to tolerate discomfort, resist the urge to escape, and recognize that growth often comes from doing what is difficult rather than what feels good. Yet those same principles are often abandoned when the subject becomes marriage. Ordinary disappointment is reframed as evidence that something is fundamentally wrong. Commitment gives way to self-fulfillment. Endurance is mistaken for dysfunction. Marriage has never promised perpetual happiness. It asks two imperfect people to honor a commitment, weather disappointment, and build a family and a life larger than either person’s immediate emotional state. Therapists should be the first to remind people that feelings fluctuate, conflict is inevitable, and lasting commitments require perseverance. My profession, though, has lately been sending the opposite message. It encourages people to trust today’s emotions over yesterday’s vows and to mistake temporary dissatisfaction for proof that a marriage has run its course. If therapists stop defending commitment, they shouldn’t be surprised when fewer marriages survive. And if the profession continues to redefine ordinary marital struggle as psychological dysfunction, it won’t simply witness the decline of marriage. It will bear some responsibility for it. *** Jonathan Alpert is a psychotherapist in New York City and Washington, D.C., and author of the book “Therapy Nation.” Find him on X @JonathanAlpert. This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Upon walking into the Oval Office on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump didn’t just inherit a broken border and a nation flooded with tens of millions of unvetted illegal aliens — he became heir to a shattered legal immigration system, exploited by dozens of reckless parole programs and the doling out of legal status to hundreds of thousands of unvetted migrants. I saw the horror of our hollowed-out immigration system firsthand while serving as the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. This illegal and “legal” immigration costs Americans a cool $150.7 billion every year (that’s a conservative estimate), craters wages for American workers, and drives up the cost of everything from housing to used cars. Of course, President Trump and his administration have made historic strides in reversing the damage — facilitating the exit of approximately three million illegal aliens from America, ending temporary protected status for dozens of countries, eschewing dangerous parole programs, and, of course, fortifying the border. A full 180 degrees from these cataclysmic programs and policies of the past is the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program — a program that requires investment in the United States and job creation for American workers in exchange for coveted lawful permanent residency (green cards). Every applicant undergoes extensive background checks and scrutiny. They have to prove they will invest in America rather than drain its resources. Skeptical? I was too. But, in three years, the EB-5 program generated $75.2 billion in investments, created 1.7 million jobs, and added $184 billion to our GDP. A budget and immigration hawk myself, I see EB-5 as a revenue generator at a time when Congress needs to find ways to fund critical priorities without descending our country into further debt. Unlike most federal programs, it does not rely on taxpayer dollars: it brings new capital into the U.S. economy, funds development projects, and creates jobs — while generating fees and tax revenue that exceed its administrative costs. The EB-5 investments also target American communities with high unemployment or in need of economic revitalization. These are often rural or overlooked communities that struggle to attract capital through traditional means. EB-5 helps bridge that gap, bringing investment and job creation to parts of the country that need it most. In my home state of Ohio, EB-5 funds contributed significantly to the construction of a full-service hospital and the region’s only stand-alone cancer center. And in Arkansas, EB-5 investment has supported the development of a technologically advanced steel recycling facility in a rural community, contributing to one of the largest economic development projects in the state’s history. Any American government program, especially immigration programs, must benefit American citizens directly. EB-5 does just that without adding to the taxpayer burden. Congress needs to reinforce the Trump administration’s efforts by codifying America First programs that require proven vetting and benefit our people and communities — which is exactly why lawmakers should make the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program permanent and include it in the next reconciliation package. Critics often attempt to characterize EB-5 as an elitist program that benefits only a select few. That completely misses the point: The value of EB-5 is not in who applies — it is in what the program delivers for the United States and the American people: jobs, infrastructure, and economic growth through investment. The administration has pursued American-first immigration since day one, but it cannot do it alone. It never could. Congress now has an opportunity to step up and deliver a policy that aligns with both national security needs and economic reality. Codifying a program that has been proven to work: enforcing the law, creating lawful pathways to citizenship that serve the national interest, and ensuring that immigration policy actually contributes to — not detracts from — America’s strength. *** Tricia McLaughlin served as the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. Follow her on X: @TriciaOhio

American youth sports programs have gained a reputation for being toxic to kids and families, but one league in the South is bucking the trend. The Swim Association Invitational League in Greenville County, South Carolina, is a recreational swim league where kids at every competitive level learn about discipline, hard work, and handling pressure through the joy of athletic competition. The league is a community bedrock that has brought swimmers and families together for over 60 years and become a quintessential part of summer for thousands. Three years ago, my family and I left the suburbs of Philadelphia and relocated to Greenville County. Shortly before we moved, I discovered my daughter, who was 7, had an interest in swimming. This was a big deal because for months I’d unsuccessfully tried to find a sport she loved, and after signing her up for soccer, basketball, and softball, I’d only found that she hated running. But when she participated in a two-week swim program at our local high school and took to the water like a fish, I knew I’d finally found her sport. I’m adamant about my kids participating in youth sports because I was an athlete and know sports can be an incredible environment for kids to learn about discipline, perseverance, and teamwork while developing healthy physical habits. Through the highs and lows of playing sports, I learned about handling pressure and overcoming adversity, which were valuable lessons I carried into adulthood. Science backs up the benefits of youth sports participation, which increases physical health while buffering the impacts of stress and anxiety. But American youth sports have undergone a major mindset shift since I was an athlete. Youth sports have become a $40 billion industry, and the low-pressure recreational leagues of the past focused on development and fun have largely been replaced by early sport specialization and high-stakes travel teams. This so-called “professionalization of youth sports” is causing overuse injuries, athlete burnout, and financial strain for families, threatening to nullify many of the benefits kids gain by playing sports. It’s also pushing kids to opt out of participating altogether. The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that 70% of kids have quit sports altogether by age 13. Too many young athletes are stressed and overworked during a time they should be having fun while playing a sport they love. The summer SAIL league in Greenville has managed to buck these negative trends and is proof you can still create a competitive, positive youth sport culture in 2026. The SAIL swim league includes over 30 neighborhood-based teams that collectively represent more than 4,500 swimmers, ages 6-18, from over 1,700 families. Many teams are coached by college students, who are often former SAIL swimmers, and practice is held twice a day for almost two months at the neighborhood’s pool. I first learned of the league from veteran swim team moms who told me joining a SAIL team would be a huge investment of time and energy but confidently assured  me, “It will all be worth it.” Our family took the plunge and joined a team at the start of our first summer living in Greenville.   Final race of the night. Photo by Meg Brock. As a new swim team mom, I quickly discovered summer swim meets are four to six hours of beautiful and overwhelming chaos. Hundreds of kids are running around barefoot, almost indistinguishable in their matching bathing suits and swim caps, playing and laughing together while waiting to swim their races. Parents, who are required to volunteer at every meet, hover at the edge of the pool clutching stopwatches as they try to capture the precise second a swimmer touches the wall. A loud “take your mark” repeats over and over again as swimmers in a never-ending line jump off the starting blocks before a cheering crowd. It’s loud, energetic, and overstimulating, but somehow it all works. Outside of the pool deck is a sprawling encampment of canopies, kids, and camping chairs that rivals any tailgate party you’d find on game day outside of a professional stadium (minus the alcohol). At my first swim meet, I made the rookie mistake of only bringing along two camping chairs. I’ve since adopted the mindset of bringing everything my family would need for an overnight camping trip, including food, water, foldable chairs, battery-powered fans, and a canopy for shelter. The meets have 80 events, and each swimmer can sign up for three races and has the chance to make two relay teams, which altogether adds up to just two to six minutes per swimmer — not a lot of time for the amount of effort put in. Summer swim allows kids at every level, whether they can barely make it across the pool or are elite all-year swimmers, to compete on the same team. New swimmers race against their own personal best while top swimmers race against each other to win and score points for their team. Everyone has something to aim for and the chance to leave the meet feeling like they accomplished something, even if they finished dead last. Every kid, not only the very athletic or single-sport specialized, has the opportunity to compete, grow, and learn valuable lessons. Swim team also gives structure and purpose to the unanchored days of summer and inoculates kids from developing a case of perpetual summer boredom. In addition to practices and meets, the team brings kids and families together through social events such as movie outings, family meals, and a nostalgic Fourth of July celebration. It provided our entire family with a sense of community when we had just moved to a new place and really needed it. It’s the only youth sport league I’ve been a part of that brings families together instead of pushing everyone in different directions. Sometimes at the end of a home meet, the entire team of swimmers, from teens to first graders, jumps into the pool at the same time to celebrate a win. It’s a kind of wholesome fun and feeling of community you usually only see in movies. I’m so thankful my kids have been able to experience it in real life. After three years of being a summer swim team mom, I understand why thousands of families have devoted two months of their summer to this beloved tradition for over 60 years. Greenville isn’t the only place where this magic happens. There are amazing recreational summer swim leagues all across the country. If you are looking for ways to build up kids and community, I wholeheartedly recommend diving into summer swim. You’ll likely find a youth sports culture you didn’t think still existed and that the practices, the long meets, and all that sweating in the sun will be worth it. It might just become your favorite part of summer. It’s become mine. *** This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

I lit a match, threw it on the ground, and walked away. Not literally. On July 29, I made what I thought was a fairly innocent observation about divides on the political right and closed the app. Unbeknownst to me, what I said engulfed X for the remainder of the week. Only after reopening the app much later did I see that so-called “Official Washington” and the conservative commentariat were ablaze about the “common good.” So, what did I say? I screenshotted a quote from a recent New York Times Magazine piece on how controversies swirling around the Heritage Foundation and the leadership of its president, Kevin Roberts, capture the entire “fight on the right” in irreducible simplicity. As the piece observed: “According to Stern, Roberts began to talk, around the office, not about individual liberty but about the ‘common good’ — not about freedom as the right to do as you want but as you ‘ought.’” The incredulous description of Roberts talking about the “common good,” at least to me, captures the fault line in modern conservatism: whether there is such a thing as the “common good” — and, if so, what its substance and scope are, and what limits should govern its imposition. How you approach the common good tells you where you land on today’s conservative spectrum. The thicker one’s conception of the common good, the more one will migrate toward a politics that focuses less on individual autonomy and more on the intrinsic goods necessary for social flourishing — and on at least some minimal government backing of them. The “common good” quarrel on the Right hinges on a single question: does government exist chiefly to secure liberty, or to serve the common good? Put differently: are political communities meant to erect as few guardrails as possible so diverse peoples can actualize their choices? Or is the point of societies to embody a particular conception of the good life? And should, or how could, the government deploy its power to ensure those ends? Perhaps the “general Welfare,” as the expressed purpose of government named in our Constitution, deserves more of our attention — even if we ask legitimate questions about the scope of its reach in achieving it. Put more sharply, it is a contest between a thin or absent conception of the common good and a thick one. And to dial down even more: what is the common good and how is it achieved? Definitionally, the common good represents the full ensemble of conditions that allow all of the constitutive elements of society to flourish. But, the rejoinder says, what does “flourish” mean in a contest of 340 million variations of the term? On one side stands what I’ll call “drag queen conservatism” — the view that a genuinely free society will inevitably produce things many of its citizens find repugnant, and that tolerating them is the price of liberty. On this account, the state’s job is to maintain the playing field, not referee it (even though, inevitably, it does referee it because at various points, governing authorities do restrict our behaviors). Neutrality is the highest political good; government lets its citizens order their lives however they want, and any political movement that seeks to advance a substantive vision of virtue eventually migrates into authoritarianism. On the other side stands the opposite conviction, what I will call “social cohesion conservatism” — the view that government can, at some level, administer a thicker vision of human flourishing from the top down; that government exists to make possible the conditions in which the good can be achieved equally by all. Where the first camp fears the state and wants its tentacles reined in, believing it impossible for government to unite 340 million people under a shared horizon, the second is more apt to pick it up and wield it. If the good is real, the reasoning goes, then a good government should promote it. I’ll confess my sympathies run toward the thicker account (but not without reservations that keep me from adopting a full “post-liberal” version of it). To put it simply, there are moral conditions, moral goods, and thus moral limits that government must recognize, lest it create the conditions seen in “Lord of the Flies.” I do not believe society can hang together by minimal standards alone. Such practices as drag queen story hour and recreational drug use are beneath the dignity of any local community regardless of whether they are freely chosen. I don’t care if New Yorkers want legal abortion — there are some ends that governments must not allow if government is to be considered just and the public square sane. For me, when societies elect to violate God’s natural law, they not only violate moral laws, they deprive themselves of the very foundations that enable their existence and flourishing. A total libertarian “hands off” approach to political orders ventures into a form of moral anarchy. As Vincent Phillip Muñoz wrote in a recent essay in First Things on the excesses of a political liberalism that bleeds into moral license, “Liberalism so understood is both relativistic and, ultimately, nihilistic. It makes the individual’s will sovereign over reality. It denies the existence of a common good because it holds that there are no rational intrinsic goods that human beings hold in common. The essence of man, in the liberal view, is willful individual choice—asserting one’s view of oneself and of reality and then shaping one’s life in light of that posited worldview.” I agree with Muñoz. In my view, man is not made for autonomy alone, and a politics that pretends to be neutral about the human good is not neutral; it is merely smuggling in an account of the common good and disguising which good it is serving. As always, the question is not whether, but which common good will dominate. But here’s the challenge for my own side of the ledger: a thick common good is necessary, but I doubt that Washington can meaningfully administer a common good thick enough to bind 340 million people under one moral roof. Why? Because society invariably consists in the clash of wills. Conservatives are rightly hesitant about putting that kind of power into the hands of bureaucracies that meddle in our lives under what they construe as altruistic motives, only to impede liberty in the name of the good. Large-scale, top-down accounts of the common good, I think, are not merely impractical. They misunderstand where the common good is best activated and realized. The common good is real, but it is best expressed close to the ground — in families, congregations, towns, counties, and states where people already share a thick sense of what their common life is for. It is far easier to name the good in small communities than in a bureaucracy that spans thousands of miles and millions of people, because the good presupposes a shared story, and shared stories thin out as they scale upward — even while we must concede there are certain basic goods that cannot be willed out of existence in the name of pluralism. All of this is why the common good is best understood as a federalist concept — Alabamians know better than New Yorkers what Alabama should look like, and vice versa. My view of the common good is informed by “subsidiarity” — the principle that local levels of social organization know their own needs better than distant bureaucracies do. The problem, though, is that the modern Left harbors no doubts and legislates its own common good under the guise of neutrality — it is pursuing a thick common good with something close to religious fervor, remaking law, medicine, education, and the family in its image. We have laws that tear at the truth of marriage, sanction the amputation of healthy body parts, allow the murder of children, and let people kill themselves. And so, conservatives skeptical of the common good are wrong to imagine that neutrality is possible or that society can hang together by procedure alone. The public square is never empty. Someone’s vision of the good always fills it. For conservatives to answer the challenge of liberalism with proceduralism alone — with a focus on rules and neutral administration — is voluntary disarmament no matter how much one wishes to rise above the fray of culture war politics. A politics that refuses to name the good cedes the naming to whoever is willing to do it (regardless of whether they call it the common good). So, the path forward is neither a federal department of virtue nor an attenuated pluralism that pretends the good does not exist. It is one that echoes our original founding: a minimal national scaffolding joined to localism. The problem, at this late hour, is that our nation disregards federalism. Court rulings impose degradations and deprivations in the face of local protest. At the national level, we must assert what no healthy society can do without: a true account of the human person, the priority of the family, respect for human rights, and the rule of law. That is a floor, not a ceiling. Beneath that floor lies barbarism — a barbarism we now practice. With that floor, though, we can acknowledge that communities remain free to build thicker, to pursue fuller and more demanding visions of their common life without a distant authority flattening them into a single uniform shape within reasonable and moral limits. What a particular community needs is best discerned by those who live there. But we must resist two fantasies at once: that the state can perfect us, and that the state can stay neutral. That’s an uncomfortable, perhaps irresolvable, tension. The common good is not optional. It is not even avoidable. The only real question is whether conservatives will summon the nerve to name their own. The other shocking (and disappointing) response to my X post was the incredulous dismissal of the common good by otherwise Right-facing pundits. The truth is, everyone relies on some account of the common good, even those who despise the concept. If you believe in property rights, you believe in the common good. Property rights establish the conditions for responsible stewardship, economic cooperation, social stability, and human flourishing. If you believe unborn children should not be killed, you believe in the common good. You recognize that justice requires protecting innocent human life, especially when it is vulnerable and defenseless. If you believe male and female are objective categories, you believe in the common good. You recognize that society must order itself according to the truth of the human person rather than treating reality as a matter of individual preference. If you think traffic lights are valuable, you believe in the common good. You accept reasonable limits on individual freedom so that everyone may travel safely and public life may proceed in an orderly fashion. If you oppose murder, you believe in the common good. You affirm that civil society must protect human life and punish those who unjustly destroy it. If you believe contracts should be honored, you believe in the common good. Trustworthy promises make economic exchange, institutional cooperation, and ordinary social life possible. If you believe parents have duties toward their children, you believe in the common good. The family is not merely a collection of autonomous individuals but a natural community structured by obligations of love, care, and formation. If you believe children should receive an education (whether public or private), you believe in the common good. A society has an interest in preparing the next generation to pursue truth, exercise responsibility, and participate constructively in communal life. If you believe the government should defend the nation, you believe in the common good. Political authority exists, in part, to secure the conditions of peace and safety that no individual can provide alone. If you believe courts should administer justice impartially, you believe in the common good. The rule of law protects citizens from arbitrary power and preserves a just order shared by all. If you believe pollution may rightly be restricted, you believe in the common good. Individuals and corporations do not have an unlimited right to impose the costs of their conduct on their neighbors. If you believe public parks, roads, and utilities are worthwhile, you believe in the common good. Some goods are enjoyed together and require forms of cooperation that transcend individual consumption. If you believe citizens owe one another honesty, you believe in the common good. A society cannot sustain trust, deliberation, or justice when deception becomes the accepted norm. If you believe freedom should be ordered toward what is true and good, you believe in the common good. Liberty is not merely the absence of restraint but the social and moral space in which persons and communities may flourish. The real debate, then, is not whether there is a common good. Every political philosophy presupposes one. The debate is over its nature, its scope, who defines it, and what means of political authority may legitimately be employed to secure it. The claim that the common good necessarily breeds authoritarianism — or that it is nothing more than the aggregate of individual choices, thereby justifying anything from drag queen story hour to any other freely chosen social practice like abortion or euthanasia — is simply at odds with the dominant tradition of Christian moral and political thought. That critique says far more about modern assumptions than about the historical understanding of the common good. In my judgment, the common good finds its deepest and most coherent foundation within the Christian doctrine of creation and providence. Christianity understands the common good as a manifestation of God’s common grace, by which He not only brought the created order into being but continually preserves, governs, and directs it toward its appointed ends. The triune God created all things according to His sovereign wisdom and will, endowing each creature with a nature proper to it and establishing the moral and social conditions under which human beings and communities may flourish. The common good, therefore, is not merely a human convention but reflects the divinely ordered structures of creation and God’s gracious providential care for all people. A couple of proposals for moving forward: If you favor the idea of the common good, be specific on what that means and what it does not. Ensure skeptics that the common good is not simply a synonym for one’s chosen utopia delivered through government decree. If you shudder at the term, give clear limits on what you think the government can do and what culture can absorb in the name of liberty. As a Christian theologian, I see this as a theological reality as much as a political one. It is continually pressed upon me that navigating fallen political orders after Genesis 3 is a constant tension in cultivating an order that does not harden into tyranny, managed alongside a twin temptation: apportioning liberty without collapsing into license. Be clear which side of the “ordered liberty” ledger you are on: Are you more prone to the need for “order” or more concerned about preserving “liberty”? Regardless of where you fall, be ready to explain your limits in both directions. In developing an account of the common good that preserves order without extinguishing liberty — and liberty without dissolving order — two books, Robert P. George’s “Making Men Moral” and John Finnis’s “Natural Law and Natural Rights,” have been the most decisive for me. Together, they chart a middle course between libertarianism and post-liberalism: perfectionist in affirming genuine moral goods that law must protect and positively advance; principled in defending civil liberties that permit public contestation over those goods; and prudential in recognizing that counterfeit goods eventually confront a community’s authority to determine what it will tolerate, regulate, or prohibit. George and Ryan T. Anderson have a helpful essay that distills the paradigm articulated by the books above. I am happy to accept that the “common good” is a contested category — its scope, substantive ends, and the limits of its political enforcement are all rightly debated. But the common good is among the oldest concepts in both classical and Christian political thought. Its cynical demonization, its reduction to individual autonomy, or its dismissal by conservatives is an indictment of modern conservatism, not of the common good. *** Andrew T. Walker, Ph.D., is Dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Professor of Christian Ethics and Public Theology. He is a Fellow with The Ethics and Public Policy Center and the Managing Editor of WORLD Opinions. You can follow him on X: @AndrewTWalker.

An Alaska fishing guide captured a viral selfie video showing a brown bear casually eating a salmon just inches from his head.  Carter Brown was leading a fishing charter near Soldotna, Alaska, last week when a mother brown bear approached his boat looking for an easy meal. Brown pulled out his phone and recorded the encounter as the bear found a salmon and began eating it beside him.   “I decided to take a selfie video of her as she foraged. She finds a piece of salmon while foraging and eats it right next to my head,” Brown told Storyful. “My clients were mind blown!” Brown later told Fox & Friends that a second bear was visible in the background while a third remained just out of frame. “I work in an extremely unique location where bears and humans coexist unlike anywhere else in the world,” Brown said. Brown said encounters like this are part of the job, and he relies on experience to keep clients calm. “This was an active fishing charter. This bear approached us while we were fishing,” he said to Fox and Friends. “When that happens, I tell my people… be cool. I’m not necessarily worried about them creating a reaction with a bear, maybe worried about them bumping someone over or causing a scene.” Brown said he was pleasantly surprised by the overwhelmingly positive response the video generated online.  “We get a lot of negative feedback, especially on the internet, where they seem to kind of take off,” he said. “Everybody was just really well received.”