CHALLENGE ONESELF

It’s good exercise, challenging yourself both the mental and physical.

Putting yourself out there, knowing there might be consequences.

I think back to a scary moment when, being freelance, I talked my

magazine editor into me writing about a first parachute jump.

Mind, I wouldn’t get paid, he said, if killed myself.

There I was 3.000 feet up in a small plane with my buddy yelling at me

when I hesitated, “Jump, God damn it! Jump!”

A static line opened the chute split seconds or so ,after I left the small

the airplane. I was tumbling in space yet with no sense of motion.

Then bang. I looked up to see the chute billowing above me.

The same friend talked me into two more jumps the following weekend.

Author’s comment: I‘ve done nothing like that ever since. That was some time ago. Other

challenges have come along. None quite so dramatic. Yet, I get my heart pumping one

way or another. It’s good for me. And you.