Lately, I’ve been kind of obsessed with watching squirrels. It all started one day walking across the Grounds at the University and I caught a group of them playing/fighting/mating/who knows in a large tree. They scurried up and back the trunk and across branches chasing one another. Whatever they were doing I thought it was hysterical.
On Saturday I sat in our living room and was in awe of the fearlessness of a couple of squirrels. I’m always amazed at just how they move. How they leap. How they fly from limb to limb. They just…Go. They seem to have utmost faith in their skills and that the branch that they are leaping from will hold their weight and break their fall.
What do we do in our lives with such a leap of faith? We plan, we create plans, we analyze and over analyze. We pray. We trust our guts. We jump into the deep end of the pool only if we’re sure it’s safe, and after we’ve tested it with a toe first for warmth, and we can swim, and we have on the right suit… and… and… and. All of the conditions have to be just perfect or we convince ourselves that now is just not the right time to make that leap. How do the squirrels just know it’s time and go? Are they not afraid to fail? Are they just THAT confident.
When you have to make a decision, a really hard decision, what do you do? Do you have the faith of a squirrel and just go? Or do you wait for a sign? Do you talk it through with friends and family? Do you go with your gut? Do you pray? Do you make pro and con lists?
If you ever had a time when you just had to have the faith of a squirrel and you just took the big leap how did it feel when the branch caught you or how did you recover from the fall?
How do you know when it’s time to just put on your big girl pants and go fiercely in the direction of your decision? HA! I said underpants. Squirrel underpants.
It’s pretty rare for me to make like a squirrel and just go. I usually think and ponder and obsess and make pros/cons lists and think and ponder and obsess even more.
That said, on occasion I do just leap into a major decision and I can’t think of a time when I’ve regretted it.
Some of the biggest decisions of my life were made spontaneously in a leap of faith. And they’ve all worked out splendidly.