Cliff Jumping: Decide
I love flying on a plane. I love every part of it. I love the take off as you’re pressed into the cushions of your seat, I love looking out over the scenery (*ok, except the ocean, there’s only so much blue water and clouds I can handle), throw in some turbulence, a good movie, and then landing. Yeah! Landing! That point when the captain tips the plane down, lowers the air speed and for just a moment you feel like your stomach is in your throat.
In that brief moment, in that split second of near weightlessness, sometimes I feel a little helpless, out of control and even slightly panicked. I’ve been learning many lessons about pursuing my dream, but one lesson I recently learned was the value of weightlessness. Sometimes pursuing a dream requires the weightlessness of jumping off a cliff. A few weeks ago I made a decision. I decided to take a step off of a cliff (*metaphorically, don’t worry I’m still here). I had two choices in front of me, I could try to pick up the pieces of my life that lay scattered around me or I could act on a dream I have had for almost 15 years. Picking up the pieces would take years to build and require both risk and hard work. I would have to continue working two jobs and go back to school while living in a small one-bedroom apartment. Everyday I would have to convince myself that someday all of this would pay off while living with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach caused by the dream I chose to ignore.
Or, I could do something about my dream. It would take years to build and require risk and hard work. I wouldn’t have a clear path to follow. In fact, there is no path to follow so I would have to create my own path. I had no guarantee of where I would sleep or how I would eat. The only thing I knew was just the thought of pursuing my dream caused my heart to race and the sickening feeling in my stomach wasn’t sickening, it was excitement.
As I watched very clear doors close and very clear doors open, it was apparent destiny stood close like a doorman holding the door of destiny open for me. I could stand on the outside and look in or I could step through, not knowing what direction to take, other than the one I just wrote down on the map I was creating with each step.
Like a fireside chat, I spent many, many hours and late nights talking to God about what was unfolding in front of me. Fear became a traveling companion. But every time I sat with the Lord and we talked about the dream He had given me, Fear became quiet and began to move away from the fire. Oh he was still there, but his voice became inaudible over the roaring flame of my dream.
The day came to either commit to take a step off the cliff or create a life of existence, living but not really living. I decided to jump. I had to let go of what was familiar, comfortable and planned, like the seat of plan and the security of a seatbelt strapping me in. I didn’t have anything to hold onto on the other side, no safety net, no guarantees, no promises, and no job offers. Just air, just letting go, completely letting go like that brief moment of weightlessness in a plane.
A dream never offers a guarantee or safety net, but it does require a decision. Not just a “some day” decision, but a decision to act, to let go, to completely let go of what is safe, what is familiar and what is guaranteed. If you think about it everything is risky, everything requires hard work. So the question is, what are you willing to risk and what are you willing to work hard for. We are always going to feel something in the pit of our stomach, either that sickening feeling or excitement. But it will be determined by whether we choose to jump or exist. Decide…