Look or jump?

A friend of mine recently did what I've been considering doing for over a year. He bought a ticket, got a visa and got on a flight to Sydney, Australia. He doesn't necessarily have everything lined up for when he gets there, but that's the beauty of it...he jumped.

So often we look before jumping...not just look, but scrutinize, magnify, analyze, look again, look once more. And to boot, many times after all that thought and all the looking, we don't even jump...we're lucky if we even hop. The Romans coined the phrase, "carpe diem"...seize the day. They encouraged taking life by the horns and diving in head first, taking a look later. Do we focus too much on the later than the now? Have we lost that seizing desire the Roman's possessed? Are we trained to think that risks and spontaneity are dangerous? Does our culture teach us that planning and paths and straight and narrow courses in life are the way to success and happiness?

It is too often I find myself thinking about the consequences, the aftermath of something I haven't even done yet, and too often that puts a pause on something, an end to something that never had a beginning. I envy people who jump and let the next day be the time to look and deal with their actions, good or bad. I like to think I jump, at least now and then. What it really comes down to is looking far down the road and if you will regret NOT doing something. I am a firm believer in my favorite quote - "the biggest regrets in life are the risks we didn't take." Even if a moment seized, a day seized, an opportunity seized doesn't necessarily have the most positive outcome, you can never look back and wonder. And in the end, every experience shapes us, sometimes the bad have more of an impact, provide more of a lesson, than the good.

I envy my friend who, by now, is probably in the land down under. He jumped.