Experience Cutting The Bungee Cord

Personal experience is one of our teachers. We should learn from the experience but not allow ourselves to be mastered by it. The greatest benefit of experience is not the event, occurrence or circumstance but what we understand about ourselves, others and life. Experience allows us to connect thought and feeling to something tangible and then use this understanding to make ourselves and the world better.

Some will say, I'll try anything once, well almost anything. Why? Why bungee jump? For the sake of saying you did it or for the trendiness or for the thrill or for facing fear?

Doing something solely because you've never done it lays the foundation for a lot of unfulfilling, empty, bad and dangerous experiences. Doing something simply for trendiness or thrill carries the same potential outcomes.

Facing fear seems like a valid reason to bungee jump but not really unless your fear is a fear of falling off a bridge or falling while on the ledge of a tall building or while hopping across construction cranes. Do those who bungee jump, jump out of planes next or vice versa? Is bungee jumping a transferable skill that allows you to face the fear of public speaking? Are bungee jumpers able to face the fear of people they fear?

There are lots of things that should never be tried, not even once. Why? Because we must also learn from the experiences of others. There is much to be said about experience but when it comes to experience for experience sake it's time to cut the bungee cord.

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