No Regrets

I will when I'm older...

Not now, but some day...

I don't have the time right now, but when I do...


Maybe you've said similar things to yourself about things you'd like to do or accomplish in your life.  After all, the end is far off and we have lots of time to accomplish our dreams.  We're young and foolish with our whole lives stretched out before us.  Right?

That's what I thought too.

In 2007, I went on a Habitat trip to Zambia led by my youngest sister.  My mom, aunt, and friends made up the rest of the team.  The most exciting aspect of the trip, aside from the build itself, was supposed to be meeting up with my sister and mom who had just done 5 1/2 months around the world.  I didn't expect to come face to face with mortality.

Looking down the irrigation corridor

The first Saturday of the build, we were drawing water from the farm's well.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  One of the villagers gestured for me to go around the well to get to the other side.  She wanted me to go down the side of the irrigation corridor and come back up.  My mind registered what I thought was a concrete slab next to the water well covering the deepest point of the irrigation corridor.  Without questioning it, I stepped onto it, expecting to walk across to the other side.

It wasn't concrete...it was tin metal.  Not designed to hold human weight.

We're not exactly sure how far down I fell, but it was close to 15 feet (or a bit more?).  For a brief second, I caught the wall on the other side with one finger, but something told me to let go.  As soon as it happened, I knew I was toast.  Every regret and dream came to mind and I accepted they wasn't going to happen.  The next thing I knew, I was standing at the bottom of the hole trying to regain my breath.  I'd landed on the thick rubber hosing and somehow avoided the scary sheet metal and rebar sticking out from the wall. 

Beauty showing where I landed

To make a long story short, by some miracle I walked away from the accident.  No broken bones, no fractures, no stress fractures.  I had some excellent bruising and a new perspective on mortality.

Life isn't a guarantee.  We don't know how many years we have, how healthy we'll be during all of them, or what will happen next year, much less in the next minute.  The promise I made to myself that trip was that I wouldn't put off the dreams until later. 

We don't know how long we're on this earth.  It might be another 40 years, it might be another 40 minutes.  It's not how long we have.  It's what we do in the time that we do get that really matters.

There are things I want to achieve in life that are scary and daunting.  Every time I wonder if I should back down, I remember the promise I made to myself.

No Regrets.