Thursday, January 13, 2011

Courage - Do I Have Enough?

This week I've seen examples of courage.  One of my former girl scouts has a facebook page of herself riding a camel in Turkey.  She is on a BIG camel and you can see ancient buildings in the background.  I think it takes courage to study in Turkey and to ride camels.  Offspring #2 blogged about her experience riding elephants in Thailand. Studying in Thailand takes courage.  Traveling to the golden triangle (where Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet) takes courage.  But what really took courage is crossing the river on a swing bridge made of rope and slats of wood.  She has a fear of bridges. Walking over any bridge is hard for her.  She held onto the side ropes which were swarming with ants.  She had the courage it took to cross that bridge.  A week from today my traveling companion wants to go zip lining in Quito, Ecuador.  We have a day in Quito to do things before our tour starts.  I've never zip lined before.  I've seen kids at a playground at Elm Creek Park zip across dangling from a bar and that looked very dangerous. Those kids zipped by at a high speed into a bar.  Many of them ended up falling into the sand.  I don't want to do that.  They were going way too fast.  And they had only their arm strength to keep them on.  I've heard canopy zip lining is different.  You wear a harness.  You have safety equipment.  You go at a safer speed.  Can I do it?  I don't like all heights.  I don't like unsafe heights.  Many times I got on my roof by putting the step ladder on top of the picnic table.  I hated that.  But once I'm on the roof, I'm okay.  I won't climb a forest tower that is swaying back and forth in the wind but I have climbed other towers.  I can climb trees.  I can stand on the edge of a cliff.  Do I have enough courage to zip line?  By this time next week, I'll know.

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