When your ankles are tied together, you don’t so much walk as shuffle. So when the man told me to walk to the end of the platform, I shuffled my way to the precipice and looked out onto nothing — precisely 43 meters (over 140 feet) of nothing that ended with a turquoise river cutting its way through a rocky canyon.

“Let go of the railing,” the man told me.

But I couldn’t make my hand release. I didn’t want to lose my balance and fall, especially since my ankles were bound together.

“I’ve got ahold of you,” the man encouraged me. “I won’t let you fall.”

That was an incongruous statement. After all, I was standing on the edge of Kawarau Bridge, the original birthplace of bungee jumping. I had come here specifically to jump off the bridge. And yet, I was afraid of falling off by accident.

I was standing with my toes dangling on the edge of the platform, took a breath and released my grip on the railing. I did not fall.

The instructor counted down, “3, 2, 1. Make it happen!”

I made it happen and leaped off the edge into nothing. And I plummeted in the same way I would have if I had fallen from the platform, but were the idea of losing my balance scared me, the jump was exhilarating.

The Importance of Intention

That is an interesting dichotomy because I was totally at the mercy of gravity whether I jumped or fell. The moment my center of balance passed the tipping point for either reason, I lost all control over my situation. Gravity took over, and I was no longer in charge of what happened to me; Sir Isaac Newton was.

I fell in exactly the same way I would have if I lost my balance, but it felt different.

Falling is scary.

Falling scared me. Standing at the edge of the platform, I did not want to lose control and tumble off unintentionally. I had a death grip on the railing and wasn’t sure if I could compel myself to let go when the instructor told me to. In that case, falling felt out of control.

Jumping is exhilarating.

On the other hand, jumping was something I did intentionally, even if the result was the same. Even if I fell per the same physics as if I had stumbled off the platform.

What separates the two.

The difference is that I chose to jump. It was an intentional act, and that intention made all the difference. It required a decision and execution. Falling would have happened to me, but jumping was something I chose to do.

It was my intention that made all the difference.

How I Lost My Job.

A year ago, I was in contract negotiations with my employer. I wasn’t pleased with how it was going. Most of the discussion was over money, but I was less interested in the financial aspects and more interested in the work environment and a less demanding schedule.

As a surgeon, I never expected my job to be easy or my hours to be short, but after the age of fifty, the decades of demands were taking their toll. I needed more time to recover from long call shifts and wanted more opportunities to spend time with my teens before they graduated high school and left to have their own lives.

Management had little interest in my concerns. The people making the contract had a “formula.” My request did not have a place in their “one formula fits all” world.

I surprised myself.

I assumed that I would sign their contract as a sign of solidarity with my partners. But when the deadline to sign had passed, I hadn’t electronically inked my name to the email on my computer (they couldn’t be bothered to print copies of the contract). My career there did not end with a bang; it ended with a whimper.

How it changed my life.

If I had capitulated and signed, that would have been falling. I chose not to sign, not to continue with an organization in which I had lost faith, and not agree to terms I found disagreeable. Instead, I leaped out into nothing.

I had no other job lined up. I chose to step out into nothing, and just like with the bungy jump, I fell.

Losing your job is one of the worst things that can happen to your psychological health. I certainly had my sleepless nights after that, but I also knew that I had chosen this path and needed to look forward instead of back.

Keep Your Eyes Forward

When I jumped from the Kawarau Bridge, I didn’t look back at where I had been. Instead, I turned my gaze to where I was going. I watched the beautiful blue, green water of the river rush up toward me, and then I felt the gentle but insistent pull of the bungy cord as it arrested my fall and pulled me back up into the air. I trusted in the cable, and it didn’t let me down.

When I left my job, I trusted in myself. I found temporary work in my area and explored several long-term options, but none of it felt right. Then I decided to do what I had wanted to do for decades; I applied for the opportunity to work in New Zealand.

Moving your family to a new country to live and work is a big enough challenge, but doing it in the middle of a COVID pandemic adds layers of complexity to the situation. But it felt right, despite the challenges (read more about my move to the far side of the world). Like the bungy jump, I knew it seemed insane at the time, but I also recognized I would regret it if I backed out. So again, I jumped. I accepted a job offer and set a long chain of events into motion; renting out our house, moving, immigration, sending kids to a new school, licensing in a foreign country, learned a new health system.

The Difference Between Falling and Leaping

The difference was I didn’t see it as falling. I had chosen to do this. If I had accepted the contract presented to me, that would have been falling. Not doing so was leaping.

It seems strange to distinguish between falling and leaping because what happens is the same, but it is significant. In both cases, I intended to jump. It didn’t happen to me; I took action to make it happen. Even if what happened after I took that action was the same — I fell into nothingness — knowing I had chosen my path made all the difference.

Intention Makes All the Difference

It is your intention that makes the difference. By setting your intention, you determine whether something happens to you or because of you. I could have seen my failed contract negotiation as something that happened to me. Instead, I chose to see it as a decision I made to support my values. That didn’t stop it from being uncomfortable. It did ensure that rather than sit around whining about what happened to me and how unfair it was, I instead got to work on creating a new opportunity for myself.

I had wanted to move to New Zealand for more than two decades. I desired the adventure of living and working in a foreign country. The islands’ natural beauty that inspired The Lord of the Rings movies had called me long before Peter Jackson began filming. The problem was that I had a “good job.” It would have been crazy to walk away from that — like it was crazy to jump off a perfectly good bridge. So I didn’t walk, I jumped. I jumped because I wanted to put more adventure and uncertainty into my life. I jumped because I trusted that something extraordinary would happen if I summoned the few seconds of courage it took to leap. In both bungy jumping and my career, I was right.

Conclusion

I encourage you to look at the difficult choices you face in your life, not as things happening to you, but as opportunities. Face the unknown, the uncertain, and the uncomfortable without shying away. Then take a step forward into growth rather than backward into comfort. And if that forward step means leaping into the void, then jump with brave intent, knowing that it was your choice. A few seconds of courage applied at the right time can make a lifetime of difference.

Read More;

Moving to New Zealand

Why “Will this Make Me Happy,” is the Wrong Question.

The Happiness Paradox, Why You’re Not Happy is Mostly You.