JUST DO IT!

It’s great when your children reach an age when you see them do things you would never pluck up the courage to do. My children are all in that category and frequently make decisions, have adventures and generally just do things that I would never have the nerve to do. Recently GUC #5 fulfilled a long-held desire to skydive. I wanted to cheer him on and murder him all at the same time. I was in complete awe of his ability to “Just Do IT!”, while at the same time I wanted to kill him for turning me into the nervous wreck that prevented me from doing anything remotely like jumping out of an aeroplane at 10,000 feet.

He described the experience as the best he’s had so far (he’s 33 years old) and no doubt it was…so far. I salute his courage and get-up-and-go attitude, even if we don’t share the adrenaline junky trait, and I feel this drive to experience life to the maximum will lead him to many more adventures (before parenthood finally tames the beast I suppose).

Strangely that very week I was explaining to our two teenage grandchildren the fact that growing older tends to make you worry less about things – what people think of you for instance. I tried to relate it to having a finite amount of phone credit and when you get to the point when you’ve used up much more than you have left you start to get selective about what you’re going to use that credit for and one of the things you stop doing is making unnecessary calls. Now in my fifties I spend less time (credit) sweating the small stuff, but what I haven’t learned is to Just Do It! But I’m getting there…..slowly.