I was twelve and living on a ranch. Ya, it was a weird time in my life.
One day after school I was walking in a fenced-in field with a friend. We were chatting and enjoying the beautiful day. That was, until we noticed five bulls heading in our direction. The bulls began walking faster. Then they started running. Pretty soon they were barreling toward us at full speed.
That beautiful day turned into a stampede nightmare at that moment. I grabbed my friend and yelled, “We need to get out of here!” We b-lined to the fence.
We arrived and realized the fence was too tall for us to climb. We were trapped! So we started running along the fence, looking for any gap or any hole we could climb through.
The stampeding bulls were getting closer.
At the last possible second we found a small gap at the bottom of the fence we scrambled under. We barely made it out alive. My heart was pounding. I’d just narrowly escaped death and saved the life of my oblivious friend. I was a hero.
I’ll never forget that experience.
As dramatic as the story felt, I found out later that the situation might not have been as serious as I thought. When I told one of the ranch hands what had happened, he laughed at me. “They probably thought you were going to feed them. If you would have stood there they would have slowed down as they approached you.”
I feel a little foolish looking back. I was running for my life from something I perceived as a threat. But it actually could have been a pretty cool experience had I stood my ground.
I wonder how many times in life we run away from opportunities and situations because we’re scared. They might bring amazing things…but we stress and run and scurry under fences that keep us away from the coolest things life has to offer.
What if I had been more brave…?
