There I was in my tube, floating down the river. It was relaxing, but I was starting to get bored. So was my new friend. Wouldn’t you know it, around that time, we floated under a train bridge. “Wouldn’t it be awesome to jump off that bridge into the river below?”
Great idea! And my new friend informed me he’d done it before. It was totally safe. There was plenty of depth in the river to make up for the 50-foot fall from the bridge.
So we swam to the bank. We climbed up the hill. And we got on the train track bridge. I walked gently to avoid jabbing rocks into my bare feet. Then we got to the center of the bridge and peered over the side. I turned to my new friend, “So you’re sure you’ve done this before…right?” He nodded. (It turns out he’d never jumped off the bridge…he was lying.)
I was scared, but I didn’t want my new friend to know. I calculated the best way to jump. I scoped out the sandiest area of the river to land in. Then, after I’d prepared, I climbed over the railing.
I’m not sure what possessed me to go first. He was the “experienced” one…but he didn’t want to jump first. But I knew this was something I wanted to do.
So I counted to three. I muted the screaming voice in my head, pleading with me to get back on the bridge. And I jumped.
It seemed like an eternity as I fell. Eventually I slammed into the water. My lip caught the surface and tore a little bit. My feet slammed into the sand at the bottom of the river. It wasn’t comfortable. But it was awesome. As I surfaced in tact, I begged my new friend to jump too. We both escaped unscathed but better for the experience.
We’ve all experienced those crazy, risky ideas that feel tantamount to jumping off a bridge. We’re all willing to ask others if they’ve done it. We’re willing to do the research and position ourselves in the right location. We might even climb over the railing. But so few of us are willing to jump. We’re so unwilling to take that big risk and cross that point of no return.
But we have to be willing to jump. We have to mute that screaming voice in our head and take the plunge. The rush is worth the risk.