Do Something That Scares You

Last Saturday, a friend of mine called and asked if I would like to go skydiving with him next summer. I have never jumped out a perfectly good airplane before (or any airplane for that matter). I have always thought it would be fun to do a tandem jump; strapping on to somebody that knows what the heck they’re doing, but of course that’s not what he had in mind.

No, he wants to take a summer-long course, and become certified for solo jumping. The process would include classroom, training, and about 25 jumps.

The idea sounds like a lot of fun. It also scares me. It’s one thing to do a tandem jump with a trained and experienced skydiver. It’s a completely other thing to imagine myself alone, jumping out of a plane, falling/flying, and parachuting to a specific landing spot on mother earth. It really energizes me to think about how amazing it would be. It also scares me.

We should all probably doing more things that scare us. Another friend of mine is known for saying that, “a rut is a grave with the ends kicked out.”

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Pete falling out if the sky. I start jumping in May.