Just Jump

Recently, I was swimming in a river in Oaxaca. We were jumping off of this ledge, about fiver meters up, into this deep pool fed by a waterfall. The water was freezing, and we were all tired and dirty, but we just kept jumping and jumping off.

I jumped several times, but its the last time that catches in my memory. I got up to the top, got ready to jump, and stopped. All of the other times I had jumped, I had just launched myself, without thinking, with a whoop of extasy. But this time, I paused.

I stopped and thought about all of the things that could go wrong. All of the things that could happen. I could hit my head. I could break something. I could drown and die. All of these thoughts came to me, and I stood rooted to that spot, unable to move. Even though I wanted to jump, even though I had done this a bunch of times, I could not move. I would like to tell you that I eventually overcame my sudden fear, that I jumped in a blaze of glory and it was a transcendent moment in the history of Alisha, but what really happened is I gave up after several tries and climbed down off the ledge, wondering what exactly went wrong.

What occurred to me was, how many times in life do we not do the amazing because we get mired down in the details? Ignoring the fact that jumping off cliffs is mildly dangerous, I didn't do it because I got scared. I considered a bunch of details that I had previously ignored and fear kept me from moving again. And while its important to consider the wisdom of your actions and be safe, how many times do we not do things in the name of comfort? "This is scary; I don't want to do it." "I don't know how to do this" or just "I don't want to."

Maybe we need to start doing scary things so we can experience the amazing.

I hope you all enjoy the new format and the new domain-this should be my blog's permanent home from now on, and I'm hoping to be able to post a bit more.

Alisha