Have you ever thought back to your younger days and wonder what was the stupidest thing you ever done? I think about that often and I believe that of all the dumb things I have done in my life, I have figure out which was the dumbest, stupidest, most ignorant thing I have ever actually knew was stupid but did it anyway.
I don't remember the name of the park we were in but I do remember it was in Moody Texas. My brother and a couple of friends decided we should go cliff diving. Well, in our case it was more like cliff jumping.
There were 2 nice cliffs there for jumping. One of the was about 20 feet off the ground, in a big wide area with very deep water below it. That was a great cliff for jumping. In fact, it was the best cliff I have ever jumped from.
Now, the second cliff. As it turns out, the worst cliff I have ever jumped from. This one was more like 40 feet high, had a narrow jump area and, instead of having a nice big water area to jump in, you had to jump out to avoid the rocks in the water. On top of all that, the area where you had to jump from was wet rock. That would make it so easy to slide when you tried to plant your foot to jump outward.
Now, of course, I did not want to do this. It was an unnecessary risk and not worth it to me.
Then my younger brother ran and jumped. Thankfully he made it. Now I'm up at the top, being ribbed by the other guys there. "Hey! I don't see you jumping", I said. None the less, it was my younger brother and I, being young and dumb, took my running start, planted my foot and pushed myself out as far as I could.
Obviously, I didn't die and in fact didn't even get hurt. I made it. Thinking back on it though, how stupid was that? I could have died that day. How about you, would you have done it?
If it wasn't me that did it and you asked me now in my old(er) age, "Would you have done it"? I would have answer, "Hell no". But how we feel now and how we felt then, is not always the same. I believe myself to be older and wiser now. Hopefully being wiser will help get me through a few more decades.
I believe I didn't die that day because I was destined for something very important in life. As it turned out, I was right about that too.
You can actually read about what that was on my blog. It's my 3-part story called You've Got to be Kidneying Me. Although only part 1 is posted so far.
"Free to Share and Use" Featured picture obtained from: https://elifesciences.org/digests/53060/why-teenagers-take-risks
