Skydiving As A Metaphor For Life

What a week I’ve just had! Skydiving in Santa Barbara, sliding through the canal in Panama, sipping cervezas in Columbia, cavorting on the beach in Costa Rica, and now about to board an airplane home in Aruba. 

As I think back over the years and wonder at how I got to live this life of non-stop travel and adventure I am reminded of two of my favorite phrases “The world is your oyster” and “Carpe diem” (seize the day). I truly believe you can be, have and do anything you want in life once you clearly identify what that is and give yourself permission to have it. 

As a philosophy major in college I thought a strange thought one day: what if heaven and hell exist only in our own minds and our lives manifest those perceptions? What if we can chose our own realities and really live instead of merely just survive? 

To pilfer another famous line “life is what happens while we’re busy making plans”. So what if we stop worrying about the future and start enjoying today to the fullest. What would happen? Well, I’ll tell you what has happened for me. I know who I am so I know what I want and I reach out my hand and I take it (and if it doesn’t yet exist then I make it). No “what if”. No going to sleep early when there’s a party right outside my door. No putting off till tomorrow what could be done right here, right now, today.

Yesterday a wonderful performer collapsed to the floor right next to me. He’s a very funny man, full of life and energy despite getting on in years, and then suddenly, in mid-sentance he passed out. A moment later he was fine, but what if that had been it. He’d been telling me about all the things he wanted to do in his life and hadn’t. Will he do them now? Would you? 

None of us knows how long we have to enjoy this gift of life. Make every day count. Stop worrying about the news, and politics, and the price of tea in China and start noticing the flavor of the food you eat, the quality of the company you keep, and the memories you make along the way. 

I feel like I’ve lived five lifetimes already and I’m just getting started. Throwing myself out of a perfectly good airplane at 13,000 feet while screaming at the top of my lungs on my birthday was as good a way as any to shock my system into full awareness that I am alive. I can tell you the air smelled sweeter and ground felt firmer when I landed.

Here’s the video. Carpe diem!

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