"daddy. I'm scared"
"...Max, don't look down"
Standing on a telephone wire hooked up to a couple of trees suspended 30 feet above the ground can give you a new perspective—even if it's after the fact. When my seven-year-old expressed his reluctance to move forward, I said what came natural.
"don't look down"
In retrospect, the first thing I did myself was to look down. That's right, I found it impossible not to and it was the opposite of the advice I was giving. The hard part wasn't avoiding the temptation—it was deciding that I wouldn't be paralyzed by it. There's no point in pretending that the reality of your situation doesn't exist because it does. It's better to embrace it and then take the next step in a direction that moves you forward. We just can't linger on that moment that we look down and realize the gravity of our situations.
Look down. Then quickly move forward.
