Hitting the Brakes

A woman hangs on a zipline moving over a forest of treetops

It’s your first time zip-lining. You’re really excited to try it as it looks like amazing fun though also a bit terrifying if you think about it too much. You do the introductory overview session, get strapped in and start with an easy crossing. As you keep going, each “run” gets a bit longer or a bit higher from the ground. Then you get to one that is a long crossing and over a deep gorge. You look across and are terrified and decide not to do it. Then…the rest of the participants start doing it successfully – youngish kids, senior citizens and everyone else. Then, you’re embarrassed, thinking, “am I just being a scaredy-cat?” You decide to be brave and go for it. And…it’s scary as you’re going. You feel like you’re going too fast and are out of control so you start braking to slow things down a bit. But…you brake too hard which results in two problems…your shoulder socket really aches because you just yanked really hard and…now you’re stuck in the middle over this really deep gorge, one of the things you were most afraid of happening. 

Hitting the brakes isn’t always the best answer as I learned the hard way because this was my story. The guide had to come out and help push me in. I was brave enough to finish off the rest of the course, but I definitely took this lesson away with me.

Have you ever been zip-lining and had a similar experience? If you have, you know it’s critical to not overuse the brakes or you get stuck. It’s like life too…if we pump the brakes on the work we’re doing, we end up in stand still mode. 

Sometimes, hitting the brakes is an important safety measure but sometimes it’s less about immediate physical or emotional safety and more about the what-ifs that haunt us. Because my mindset was so fixated on the what-if I go too fast and somehow fall out of the harness, I missed the excitement of the speed and made my experience a bit less than it could have been.

As we go through our lives, we need to be able to apply brakes whether they are the physical brakes on our cars or bikes or zip line harness or if they’re the choices that we make. But, we need to think through why we’re applying the brakes. Is it common sense or is it a fear of what could happen response?

How hard are you pumping the brakes on the priorities in your life? What could you ease up on and enjoy the speed of the ride?

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Whose Story Are You Living?

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The Story of a Rotting Deck