Decisions

Today, my friends and I went out to go rock hopping.  Rock hopping is where you go to a mountain river that has a lot of rocks/boulders, and just jump upriver from rock to rock.  We have a special place we go to near the Chimney's in the Smokey Mountains, and so we got a group together, and just jumped along.  We reached a spot high up on the river, where we took off our shoes and got wet in the 'waterhole'.  Since it wasn't quite warm, the water was freezing, so I just went in little by little, until I was waist deep... when Duff came from behind me and threw me in the water.  Slightly disturbed, I was shaking with cold, but still managed to make it through.  After a while, we went down and returned to our cars and went back.

During the trip up and down, there were choices we had to make, to choose which path to go, which rocks to jump onto.  Knowing how my legs were, I knew there were distances I couldn't handle, and so I made decisions to only go as far as I knew my body would allow.  One misstep and I would fall into the river, or possibly slip and hit my head on the rock.  I made sure that I wouldn't take the wrong steps and both ways up and down, I managed to get through without incident.  Some others weren't so lucky.  There were a couple splashes and bruises because some of them misjudged and made poor decisions.

Decisions happens when cross-roads appear.  When there are two paths.  We decide which path to take.  Some paths are challenging and have great rewards, other paths are easy and gets you to where you need to go.  On the rock-hopping trip, we would try to go for the challenging paths and only take them when we were absolutely sure we could make it.  Knowing yourself and your capabilities definitely helped us make our decision.  You weren't ever sure if you could make it until you tried, so once you made a decision, you would go for it... or fall trying.  I remember a friend of mine who made a decision, but mid-jump hesitated, and because of that hesitation, didn't make it and banged his knee up.  Once you make a decision, you don't want to hinder yourself but instead go full force in order to give it your best shot.

We have a lot of decisions that we have to make in life.  They change the path you take and the direction that you go, but as long as you know what the end result is, it's important to make the right decision.  Have fun.  Make the decision of your life.  Go forward and don't regret it.  We'll fall at times, but we learn from that.  Decisions happen whether we want them to happen or not, so lets make the best decision possible.