A family stood near a roller coaster ride. Each one had a different look. The teenage son looked at the cars coasting around with glee; he was just waiting, I could make out for his share of fun; the mother looked a little worried and the father was grinning till he saw his small daughter crying. “What’s wrong?” he asked and I strained my ears to hear the conversation. “I’m afraid dad!” she said, “I don’t want to get on the roller coaster!” “Sissy!” cried the teenage brother. “Don’t be a spoil sport!” said the worried mother.
The cars were slowing down as I saw the father take the little girl’s hand, “Go for it!” he said with an impish smile, “go for it, even if you’re scared! Then one day you’ll laugh and tell everyone how you were afraid but went for it!”
The little one gave a nervous grin, but stepped into her car. I heard her screams as the cars went twirling; but they were screams of joy! A writer Dave Barry says this about his father: “My dad … he’d try anything — carpentry, electrical wiring, plumbing, roofing. From watching him, I learned a lesson that still applies to my life today: No matter how difficult a task may seem, if you’re not afraid to try it, you can do it. And when you’re done, it will leak.” (And then you’ll pay somebody even more to fix it than if you’d called him in the first place.)
But I learned from my parents the value of “going for it.” “Nothing ventured, nothing lost,” is the motto of too many of us. Many people are so afraid to fail that they never venture beyond the familiar. “Better to be safe than sorry” has trapped too many unhappy people in the cocoon of their comfort zones.
I remember a few years ago, during a water shortage, having a well dug for the people in my colony. The water gushed out, but many in the colony said that the water was not fit for consumption. So, I, along with the secretary of the colony, drank the water as it gushed out, and soon people allowed the connections to their houses to be made, allowing water to be carried to their tanks.
This saved them from a water crisis that year, but if I had not stood near the pipe, drinking the water, nobody would have allowed the connection, despite the shortage. Someone had to stick their neck out. “Behold the turtle,” says James Conant. “He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out..!”
—(bobsbanter@gmail.com)
