take the jump

Short story from maktub (reproduced with permission) from the website of Paulo Coelho

————–

When the wanderer was ten years old, his mother insisted that he take a course in physical education. One of the activities required him to jump from a bridge into a river. Early in the course, he was paralyzed by fear. Each day, he stood last in line, and suffered every time one of those in front made his jump — because it would shortly be his turn. One day, the instructor — noticing his fear — made him take the first jump. Although he was still frightened, it was over so quickly that the fright was replaced by courage. The master says:

“Often, we can afford to take our time. But there are occasions when we must roll up our sleeves and resolve a situation. In such cases, there is nothing worse than delay.”

I think this story was especially for me 🙂

I’ve managed to more or less discard my hesitation in countless aspects of life – for example when I climbed into a two mile deep cave or took my first roll in Aikido classes [which at first seemed like diving into a concrete pool], but there are is still one fundamental aspect where there’s some room [er… an entire hall actually…] for improvement: procrastination of paperwork or other mechanical trivial tasks that are so horribly inevitable in life.

Actually I read somewhere that one of the key reasons for procrastination, especially of the everyday boring chores – is an underlying fear of the sheer magnitude of the task at hand. So jumping from a bridge into cold water I’ll probably do relatively much easier 😉 – than something more trivial but cumbersome… for example like filling up 3 page application form and getting it photocopied along with other documents, standing in queue early in the morning at the passport office – something I’ve been postponing for ages!

When I was in Hyderabad once, a very ordinary thing had happened – I was getting late but still walking slowly, and someone told me… in a very gentle yet urgent voice… “bhaisaab, zara jaldi…” [brother, a little faster…] A very simple statement of course, but somehow it jarred me! I felt that I really need to get this into my system, I’ve been slow at many crucial times in my life!