It was almost three months ago.
I was standing on the edge of the platform, looking down at the white rapids that lay 500 feet below. The instructor taps my shoulder and says, “You’ll jump on three. One…two…”
My heart was pounding, my palms were sweating and I started to regret every decision I had made to get me to this point. It’s funny how that happens. You are sitting in your living room one day and this crazy, radical idea comes into your head. You feel like nothing can stop you, but when it comes time to take that leap, you freeze. It seems like everything within you and around you is saying, “Don’t do it. Turn back!”
When I was on that suspension bridge waiting my turn to plunge into the depths of the gorge, I felt like I was on top of the world. I was surrounded by great friends and an amazing panoramic view of some Himalayan foothills. I was about to take a brave leap, the outcome of which I was unsure. If my life was a movie, a Bon Jovi song would have been playing in the background. But up until that point, this idea to jump off of a bridge was just that, an idea. There was no risk.
Great risks start with great ideas, but the problem is so many people get stuck in the planning and never make it to the “doing”. They find themselves standing on a platform, staring at their potential fall and they never jump.
I felt the instructor’s foot behind mine. There was no turning back. I felt him loosen his grip on my harness and then I heard him say the five letter word that I had been dreading, “…three.”
I jumped.
I was flying head first and before I had time to think about my head getting crushed on the rocks beneath me, the cord tightened and I snapped back up. It was over.
Bungee jumping was one of the greatest feelings in the world. But you and I both know the “risk” I have been mentioning in this blog has nothing to do with thrill sports.
You have a choice. Your life can be made up of ideas and distant thoughts of what could be.
Or your life could be a great compilation of risks and you get to experience what is.
