What I Learned Falling out of a Plane

On the last day of summer I fell out of a plane. Not by accident, it was completely on purpose. Something really cool happened when it was all said and done. I learnt something pretty powerful.

The first thing that hits you when you skydive is when the door of the airplane opens. Because your brain turns on and you think: "Holy crap I've never been flying in a plane with the door open before!"

Then you see the people that you are going skydiving with all jump out of the plane (because I was an idiot and volunteered to go last). Then you are at the door, the air is blowing, you can barely hear anything. Then for some reason unknown to your mind, you jump. Then you are falling, and it is a whole new world. Except no flying carpet and no Disney music.

It's not even like falling. The air is thick, it is something in-between water and air. You fall about 5,000 feet in 40 seconds. At the very end of your fall you clock 200 kilometre per hour.

The view and the feeling is like nothing you have ever experienced. Then when it is all over you want to do it again. Because it was like going into a whole different dimension. The only thing that prevented you from doing it sooner was complete total fear!

But the funny thing is, that fear that you had before you jumped, it's all just in your head. Once it is done it's actually not scary at all. In fact once you've gone past the point of no return and the parachute is in the air you think to yourself: "that was not nearly as scary as I thought it would be."

That was the spiritual thing I learnt falling out of a plane: everything that is paradigm shifting and meaningful in your life will exist on the opposite side of complete and utter terror. That may sound daunting. But once that terror is faced, you find out it is not big. The fear you had in your head was the shadow of a dragon, and then when you see the dragon directly after turning a corner you see it is no larger than a cat. Most the fear we face in our daily lives is not created by the thing you are trying to accomplish, instead it is mostly created by yourself. If you don't believe what I am saying is true, I have a simple test for you: jump out of a plane and find out for yourself.

Just be sure to jump out of a plane today. What ever your "plane" may be!