I am me: #5 - Willing to try

It ran away steeply like a long shiny steel tongue some weird playground-beast had unfurled from within it's gaping maw; it glinted in the light, glinted like the glory that I knew awaited me...one must visualise greatness - on this day, in my minds-eye, my impending greatness glinted brightly.

I sat like a Titan atop my bike, the sun causing shadows and light to play across my devastatingly handsome features - carved like chiseled granite - right upon the flat section just at the edge of the sharply declining slippery slide; my face set in a look of derision at the puny obstacle. I contemplated the task ahead and knew it was no match for one as Titanic as I.

It looked a long way down but it was completely straight so would be quite a straightforward thing; ride over the edge, peddle like fuck and pull up just before the end to affect a magnificent jump to the ground ending before effecting a stylish rear-wheel skid and accepting the glorious rapture of applause. I saw it all so clearly in my minds-eye and I even heard the adulation of the neighbour kids as they hailed me for the magnificent slippery slide tamer I truly was. What could go wrong? Well, at that point thoughts of what could go wrong didn't come to mind, I was a Titan and Titan's felt no fear.

The challenge had been issued and I was willing to give it a try, it was who I intrinsically was - a Titan - the kid who would see a challenge and feel inclined to give it a try because nothing good came from sitting back like an afraid little bitch. One must be Titanic!

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A half hour earlier the neighbour kids had dared me to ride as fast as I can down the length of what was a steep and long slippery slide at the park near home.

They've removed it now, many years later, for being too dangerous for the little-baby-soft-mewling-weaklings that are the children of today, but back then in the late 1970's it shone in all its glory and I'd taken up the challenge eagerly as all Titans would. Anyway, because it was in my nature not to shy away from challenges I'd accepted and there I sat on my bike looking down at the thin strip extending below me imagining glory and acclaim I'd deserve.

Titans do Titan shit, it is known.

I pushed off to the rapturous applause calls of, "you're going to die you fucken dick head", from the neighbour kids.

I ignored it and peddled as hard as I could watching the bottom of the slippery slide racing up to meet me as I went. Glorious, spectacular and Titanic? You bet it was! I was re-writing the history books, the world would quake in fear and admiration at my Titanic feat.

Just prior to half-way things turned for the worse.

I got the speed wobbles.

Everyone knows the speed wobbles are almost impossible to recover from.

Everyone fears the speed wobbles.

I'd succumbed to the treacherous ways of the speed wobbles previously and had crushed nuts, bruises, scrapes and cuts to prove it.

At about half-way down the speed wobbles got me good. Titanically good.

I ran completely off the edge of the slippery slide onto the steeply sloped ground at the side of it, unfortunately I went over the side that had the steps cut into it which were lined with lengths of timber. Not good. Titanically bad.

I ended up at the bottom, crashing my way all the way down.

I'd like to say my first thought was for my bike and my first words were, "how's my bike," which I'd had reason to say many times before but...I was pretty fucked up. I lay there for a while...just long enough for the laughter from the neighbour kids to filter into my head...

Titans sometimes fail.

Later, many days later and still recovering from my wounds, I evaluated the episode and thought about what went wrong and began to work on fixing my bike and thinking about a second attempt knowing that I'd learned from the last.

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Willing to try

I was one messed up little brown eight year old kid with a lot of scrapes and cuts, bruises and even a black eye...all of which I wore like a badge of honour like Titans do.

I got in trouble for it, my parents (yet again) having to lecture me, and I had to dip into my meagre pocket money stash to help pay for my bike which was not much better off than I was but that's ok...I didn't have the ability to be anything other than what I was, the Titan kid who is willing to try.

Throughout my life I've continued to be that kid; I mean, the man who still has the will to try ethos. It's more refined now of course, I see it for what it truly is, but even so it still bites me at times.

Taking risks in business can go badly. Doing activities like skydiving and hunting can too. Sometimes relationships are risky, racing motorbikes and cars too, other times I've been in risky professions...all things I've been willing to do out of a sense of responsibility, adventure, a never-quit attitude, ownership, determination, persistence a sense off wonder and sometimes plain old stupidity...and the need to simply get things done. But sometimes taking risks works out well, positively and to my benefit.

It's beyond fear where the road to something amazing, special, valuable or beneficial often lays and I've always been the person who's willing to try, to take action and push those fears and limits.

Thinking back on some of the stupid things I did makes me laugh sometimes; goddamn it I was stupid at times...but when I succeeded it was glorious and still is: Relationships, business, finance and so on, sometimes something amazing awaits just across the line that is fear. I learned so much through failing as a kid crashing my bike, hurting myself and such things, and I continued to learn, still do. But the successes came too, so many of them, and I put that down to my willingness to try knowing that failure may result.