Jump Off a Cliff, Stick a Crayon in Your Mouth & FLYYYYY!

What do a cliff, a crayon, admitting that you have gonorrhea and a distaste for psychiatrists all have in common? Apart from all having the ability to make you cry (try inserting a crayon deep into your ear), when combined, they create the perfect test of one’s willingness to maximize their life to its fullest potential. Together, they outline exactly what needs to be done, leaving you to decide whether or not you’re up for the challenge.

This is not some 5 or 10 point strategy for achieving your goals. I’ve never been a fan of such methodology. Instead, this is just a fresh perspective for viewing that undeniably existent, yet seemingly distant, ability to accomplish what we want in life. Often we are just too scared of the unknown to actually make use of this ability and we then prefer to retreat to the comfort of our ordinary lives instead.

And that seems like a waste to me. So with the assistance of a few lines from author Kurt Vonnegut, here’s exactly what cliffs, crayons, gonorrhea and psychiatrists can do to help us utilize the power we have to change our lives.

(Of course, there is a chance that this might not be such a fresh perspective to you. I might have grossly underestimated the regularity with which gonorrhea is used as a motivational tool.)

A Cliff

Have you jumped off a cliff yet? If not, you need to do so right away. You can’t fly, you say? Well, simply walking around the top of a cliff, peering down over the abyss and then retreating to a comfy corner office where you attempt to devise a way to fly, won’t get you too far. You need to jump, to be enveloped in the urgency of having no choice but to learn to fly. Only then will you find a way to do the impossible.

No matter what change you’re yearning for – change of jobs, starting your own business, entering into a new relationship, taking salsa lessons, traveling around the world or learning to skydive – you will not be able to achieve anything if you don’t jump right in, as fearful and inexperienced as you may be.

I spent three months trying to recruit friends to accompany me on my first backpacking trip to Southeast Asia. Not one person wanted to join me, yet I was determined to travel anyway. And so I bought the plane ticket and flew to Bangkok. During that flight I shook with fear as I was facing a great unknown (solo travel in a foreign land) without any idea of how to survive (I’d never embarked on such a trip before). Young and naïve, I threw myself into the chaos that is Bangkok and slowly, piece by piece, hour by hour, I started to gain some ‘travel smarts’ and find my comfort level. After a few weeks passed, I felt as if I was flying, as if I had been traveling for years.

Jump over that cliff and all the cliffs that you come upon in life and you’ll surprise yourself at how well you handle the situation and how quickly you can learn to fly when you have no other option.

A Crayon

Once you jump over the cliff, you’re first instinct will probably be to look upwards and wonder if there is any way to defy gravity and get yourself back up to the top of the cliff. You’ll have been stripped of those sacred comforts we look forward to every day in mainstream life – certainty, schedules, a solid plan, specific duties, and a trustworthy Bic pen. Suddenly, you have none of the above and are far from being at ease, due in no small part to the ground below that is rushing up towards you at a seemingly unnatural speed.

Ok, so you don’t know how to start flying. When I began learning Spanish five months ago, I refused to speak Spanish to anyone but my close friends, and never in public. I lacked confidence in myself and I was afraid that my results would simply be embarrassing. Naturally, I made almost no progress. Only when I began to open my mouth, with my heart-pumping fast and an easily detectable look of fear and clueless-ness bolted onto my face, did my Spanish began to improve. Sure, my first words were nonsensical gibberish that resulted in only blank stares, but it was a start.

So even if you feel like an armless, legless person with only a crayon in your mouth, you better start wiggling your face around and putting that crayon onto any writable surface you can find. Eventually you’ll gain control of that writing instrument and start making sense out of the situation you are in. Don’t waste time dwelling on your lack of ability, confidence, clear vision or experience. Buy that plane ticket, register that domain name, ask the person you met at the library out for a cup of coffee, sign-up for those salsa classes or start using the little Spanish you know.

The biggest dreams always begin as vague and unintelligible scribblings.

Gonorrhea

Do you have gonorrhea? If so, you better do something about it. Don’t ignore it or deny it. In fact, we shouldn’t ignore or deny any factors in our life that have the very real potential to interfere with our goals. And gonorrhea would be one of those factors. As would a short temper, lack of self-esteem, unhealthy eating habits, dishonesty, an addiction to stealing motorcycles and on and on. Ignoring any of these will not make them go away. In fact, they will come back to haunt you often and more devastatingly each time, making it impossible to reach your goals.

It’s not a very wise idea to jump off the cliff, wag you’re head around with a crayon in your mouth and then deny the fact that you have a 20-lb weight in your back pocket. You might still devise a feasible method for flying, but you won’t be able to put it into practice and will hit the ground (with quite a thump I might add) as a result.

My life used to be filled with an unhealthy amount of stress, leaving me constantly tense and suffering from endless headaches. For a couple of years I tried to ignore it, but I eventually decided that this stress was preventing me from fully enjoying my travel experiences. And so I stopped ignoring it and signed up for a 10-day meditation retreat instead.

I don’t want this post to be about that meditation retreat but I will say that those ten days changed my life more than I could possibly describe. My life of wandering would not have been possible without that experience. In ten days, I went from overstressed to what my mother often refers to as “too calm”.

I often reflect upon this drastic transformation and it keeps me on my toes. I am always in tune with what I am trying to accomplish and whether or not there is some aspect of my life that is holding me back from doing so. I am not ashamed of anything. I don’t have that kind of time. If I have gonorrhea than I’m going to admit it and deal with it as quickly as possible. (I don’t have it in case you were wondering) Only then would I be able to move forward.

A Distaste for Psychiatrists

Are you on the edge? Or are you in the center, safely shielded from the extremes of the world? If you’re sitting quietly in the center, clinging on to your comfort zone, you may want to consider what you’re missing. Out there on the edge are limitless possibilities and opportunities, people achieving unbelievable goals and an infinite amount of inspiration. There is an excitement on the edge, a positive energy so powerful that the crazy ideas bouncing around your head suddenly don’t look so crazy after all.

Sure, staying in the center is definitely the safest bet, but how you can reach your full potential if you must always make decisions that fit within the limited boundaries of mainstream society? Greatness comes from those who brush aside the well-trodden paths through life, choose to be their own person and chart their own unique course.

How do you get to the edge? Don’t be afraid to be different, even when others attack your thoughts, ideas and decisions. If you want to travel, then go and travel, even if nobody wants to join you. If you want to dedicate your life to origami, stop thinking it’s a crazy idea, and start connecting with people that are already doing just that. Let others ridicule you and shake their heads as you bust through the bubble of the mainstream and take your place on the rewarding outer edge.

From the edge, you can jump off as many cliffs as you want, leaving your friends and family standing in shock as you suddenly pop out of the abyss, with wings flapping and soar off into the limitless horizon.

Try jumping while in the center. You can jump all you want and you’ll safely land in the exact same place every time. That’s not exactly progress.

Here’s one final quote from Mr. Vonnegut:

While this is certainly a scary thought, I slightly disagree with him on this one. True terror to me would be waking up one morning and discovering that I’m not running my own life. And that’s exactly why I have chosen to pitch my tent out on the outer edge, where the view is infinite and much of the land unexplored. Only here can a person run wild and free.