Remember being
a kid and standing atop a 10 to 12-foot
diving board?
First, it was
that trip up the ladder. You looked up, not
down. You were determined. But then on top, it seemed as though you were standing atop Niagara Falls. (Having
never been to Niagara Falls at that point in your life.)
Holy Moly!
Remember looking
down to the water, you had the hight of the board, plus your height up to your eyeballs.
What was that 15 to 17 feet?
Did you jump or climb back down? (Hey, self-preservation
is nothing to sneeze at.)
You jumped.
Whap!
You should have
held your nose, for it almost got ripped
off your face. The water sucked you in like a vacuum, and your feet touched the
bottom of the deep end. You gave a push
with your toes, and sailed back up to the
surface.
Ah
ha. Victorious!
Would we let a nine-year-old
jump off a 12–foot high board now?
I don’t know.
My mom jumped off a hay-loft into
a pile of hay at about that age and broke her tailbone in the process.
Hay isn’t as soft as it looks,
neither is water.
We survived
childhood.
It’s a
miracle.
Once in the
heat of summer, I saw a little girl
climbing a water fountain in Portland Oregon. It was a fountain where water
poured over steps at least a foot high so the kids had to scramble using arms
and knees, to get over them. (I’ve
tried, but can’t find that fountain again.)
That girl, the
smallest of the group, was following the big kids, and she had to scramble more
than the others to get over the steps, but she climbed until she almost reached
the top. There she stopped, held her arms to her sides and began shaking.
A panic
attack.
Oh my God, I
thought, shall I climb up there to rescue her?
Suddenly this
little girl, no more than five-years-old, mustered her courage and climbed on
up to the others.
What an
inspiration!
If ever I saw someone
face their fears and push through, it was that little girl.
Sometimes as
adults we must face our fears too. I’m not talking about extreme sports where
people put themselves in harm’s way for the adrenaline rush, I’m talking about
taking the next step in your career, or going for what you have wanted to do
your whole life, or creating something new not knowing if anyone else in the
entire world will appreciate it.
What shall we
do in situations such as those?
We compare ourselves
to others—there are better writers than me, people with brighter ideas, those
more intelligent and better educated. Yet, many times we are comparing
ourselves with the finished product rather than a work-in-process.
What about
that scientific gizmo, shall you spend the hours, the research to perfect it?
Is it worth the struggle?
Have you seen an
early Steven Spielberg or George Lucas who inspired a generation to believe in The Force? While their early movies look amateurish their
finished products are exquisite.
We think, “Someday.”
Does someday
come? Sometimes. Sometimes not. I had a friend who desperately wanted to
travel, but she waited for the right time, the right traveling companion, the
right situation, and life passed, and so did she. Rats!
What am I
trying to say?
I don’t know
how many readers want to go for their dream, perhaps their careers are spent, and
they are retired.
Retirement is
the best time to do what you’ve always wanted to do. Think of it. You aren’t
working for money anymore. And you do not want to join the great unwashed who
sit flipping channels all day.
We only have a
limited number of days, years, hours on this planet, we ought to make the most
of them.
So want do you
want to do, besides read me?
Oh, do that
first.
My motto, when
presented with a task, is to follow the Disney Imagineers directive. Say yes,
beat your head on the desk in your belief that you can’t do it, then do it.
Dive off a white horse.
