When I was a kid I used to love going to amusement parks. I'd get on any and every ride regardless of how scary it looked. These were ghetto "throw em up overnight in a parking lot" carnivals so the risk of death was actually pretty understandable. Being adventurous, the more likely a ride could kill me, the more I wanted to get on it. Then one day I grew up.
I found a website in college that focused on ride accidents. An hour later, I was terrified of every ride. As with most things, I forgot about the website and a year or so later went to Six Flags in New Jersey. I got on the Superman ride. It was a suspended roller coaster where they rotate the seats so that you're in a plank position as if you're flying underneath the track. Suddenly, every memory from that website came rushing back and I was terrified. I went through the entire ride with my eyes closed clutching the restraints. It wasn't the ride itself. That was actually pretty lame. It was the fear that the restraints would pop open due to hydraulic failure and I'd fall 50 feet to the concrete and die like someone I read about. It was the longest minute of my life.
I didn't get on anything else there and I felt stupid the whole way home. It'd be different if I hadn't already stood in line for an hour and a half or if I had gotten off before they locked the restraints, but I was already on the ride. I had already made it up the hill. Whatever was gonna happen was out of my control, but I had this illogical feeling that closing my eyes and holding on tight would make a difference. Maybe it was my subconscious trying to give me the allusion that I had some power. I don't know.
What I do know is that life is a lot like that. Someone close to me was just given an opportunity to take a job overseas. She's considering turning it down out of fear of what could go wrong. Maybe the job will suck, she'll miss her friends, it's unfamiliar and what if she falls flat on her ass? Moving all the way back to the States jobless and a failure is more than she feels she could take. The way I see it, she's already gotten on the ride. She stood in that long ass line by studying for classes that would have no use in the real world, she put up with shitty jobs and bosses to get to this point in her career and she's had to sacrifice things she wanted to do for "business need" all in the name of work-life balance. Now that she's reached the top of the hill and sees how high she's come, she's afraid she'll fall so she's closing her eyes and trying to hold on to what's secure.
The truth is, life is very very short. You don't have as much control as you think and sometimes you need to realize that and just relax and go with it. So keep your head back, arms inside the vehicle and, as always, enjoy your ride.
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