Decisions and Doing

I like heights. I like being up high. Must mean something psychologically but I’ll leave that to someone else. Not important for my story. I always wondered what it would be like to fly in the air, nothing around me, unprotected, exposed. How better to experience it than by jumping out of a plane. This is a story about decisions. It’s also about doubts, and worry and fear. My first decision was to create this adventure, which meant find out where and how one could do such a thing. In California anything is possible. I soon made another decision despite fear and worry to get up early and drive to the desert where people were flying through the air after jumping out of perfectly good flying planes. I signed up and bravely told the folks there that I would like to jump out of a plane. They told me they could get me in the air in an hour or so with one of the instructors jumping tandem [tandem is where you are strapped in with a very experienced person and take the jump with them]. This is not why I am here I replied. I want to jump by myself [simply reinforcing my decision]. I was soon paired up with an instructor and we decided on the jump where my chute would automatically open about five seconds into the jump [yikes!, I made a decision to trust]. Then came the instruction- upon jumping, arch!!, there will be a camera on the wing and focus on that, how to steer once the chute is open and what to do if it doesn’t open or is tangled [yikes again!]. I paused and calmly asked him what makes you think I will have any presence of mind when flying through the air to remember anything you are now saying. He had no answer. The moment arrived. They packed a parachute onto my back, gave me a helmet and said hop into the plane. I crawled to the back of this very small plane and while we were airborne I tried to remember everything I was taught. Well this was too much thought for my brain as I began feeling overwhelmed and doubtful. I realized what would help would be to get right into this present moment. I smacked the helmet a few times to bring me back [recalling those old war movies where the grizzled sergeant would slap the frightened recruit out of his fear and get back to the job at hand]. Then it was time. I crawled to the opening of the plane. I sat down, my legs dangling in the air, one hand below me on my left the other up above on my right in a position to push off. My instructor told me he wouldn’t push me. I was where I always wanted to be and here is where the important part comes in; just doing it. I looked down and I suddenly got very afraid, thinking this is crazy I’m going to die. Then I made the most important decision of all-Don’t Think! You see thought wasn’t my friend, instinct was. I stopped thinking. The only thought or decision that I had was go, and I did. I was in the air arching and searching for that camera. Actually that was the only thought I had, remembering that would save me. I felt the air and the wind and I did have presence of mind and made the decision to focus. Soon [actually too soon as I was enjoying myself at this point] the chute opened I was jarred upward and I sailed through the sky. I was safe and actually enjoyed the ride and steered and remembered everything I was taught. It’s a story of decisions. It’s a story about doing it. How thoughts, except for the small, directed crucial ones never make things easier. I’m reminded of the five-second rule [not the one where food falls on the floor]. It says we have five seconds to do something. After that there’s too much thought and it becomes very difficult if not impossible. Here’s to four seconds and no thinking!