I’m 4 years old and I’ve just been put in front of a thousand pound horse and I can’t wait to get on. Five minutes later the horse slips in a gopher hole and rolls over me, nearly crushing me to death. Let me try again.
I’m 22 and alone in the Colorado mountains. I’m standing in front of a raging mountain stream that I have to cross to do an environmental report. 30 seconds later I’m being washed downstream banging against rocks. I crawl out of the water and crawl to the road where some rangers find me and take me to the local hospital for cuts and a sprained ankle. Two days later I’m packed and ready to head back into the woods.
I’m 27 and I’m wandering round a “bad place”. Montrose was a no-go zone for suburban kids back in the 80s. Where pimps and junkies would just as soon cut your throat as look at you. Why go inside the loop when you have everything you need in the ‘burbs? But by the mid 90s I’m hearing things out in the Richmond strip. Stories about some clubs and restaurants inside the loop. Around Montrose and Washington avenue. So I lock my doors, roll up the windows and drive into the city in my Gold colored Saturn and drive round. Still plenty of tattoo parlors but no drug dealers or junkies, no roving gangs. Some of the boarded up brick houses are being renovated. Just then a rock comes flying from out of the dark and dents the passenger side door. I floor it and end up lost for the next hour till I stumble onto loop 610 and find my way home. For the next few years I would slowly begin exploring the inner loop one street at a time.
I’m 44 and standing in an overgrown wind tunnel about to try indoor skydiving. The instructor warns me to be careful and not smash my face against the side of the tunnel. Nothing happened. I had a good time. Not all my adventures wind up as disasters.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t just automatically walk into dangerous situations just for the hell of it. I’m not blind to the possible dangers. I have hesitated at times before embarking on something new or potentially dangerous.
But overall I never find that hesitation is all that worthwhile. For the most part I find hesitation in any part of my life has done me more harm than good and being bold has for the most part paid off.
I’ve hesitated about opportunities in life, about business decisions, about personal decisions and rarely has it paid off. You totally should hesitate when you find yourself in a totally unknown situation but if you find that you hesitate because of an imagined danger or what you think might or might not happens then I would strongly urge you to put aside that fear and try.
At the very least you’ll come out with a treasure trove of interesting stories.
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