Dirt bike Crash

            Throughout my life, I have suffered through many injuries, from things like jumping over a fence to almost cutting my finger off with a pocket knife. However, there is one injury that I really think can be applied to life in a profound way. This injury occurred about three years ago when I was teaching myself how to ride a dirt bike. It was perhaps only the second or third time I had ridden the little 75 cc red dirt bike and it was the first time I had ever gotten any real speed on it. I had taken it across the street to the church parking lot because it was a lot easier to ride there than in the dirt. I was on the far side of the church when I hit it into third gear and hit about 30 miles per hour. I became too exhilarated to pay much attention to something like safety, so as you can imagine, the crash came. There was a long, thick pipe laid across the ground that I did not notice until I had run it over. I flew off the bike about 5 feet and skidded my way to a stop on the hard, unforgiving asphalt. The pain was excruciating. I crawled over to my bike immediately to assess the damage. Part of the exhaust pipe had broken off, the gear shifter was bent completely out of shape, and the hand bars were a little scraped. All in all, it could have been much worse, I thought. Then I looked down to see the damage done to myself. About a foot of the skin on my right leg had been flayed off. Road rash, one of the most painful injuries you can get on a dirt bike, was mine to bear. After it quit bleeding, it then started to scab up. I could not even twitch my leg without it cracking and bleeding for a couple of days. After this experience, you can be sure that I did not wear shorts when I went dirt bike riding ever again. I also was a much more careful rider from then on.

            This injury taught me a two-fold lesson. The first was that we should prepare ourselves however possible for the trials that we have in front of us. Even if we think that a metaphorical crash is not likely to happen in our lives, we should be prepared for it to happen. The second lesson is to think before you leap. We need to be on the lookout for things that can trip us up in our daily lives. If we are watchful for things that are right in front of us, and for things that are in our future, we can avoid most major crashes. This injury has permanently etched itself into my memory and on my leg. I will not be forgetting this lesson anywhere in the near future. However, accidents do happen so I will be prepared. 

The FIRST Ski Trip

            I can remember the first time that I ever went skiing. I was about 8 years old when my dad had gotten it in his head to take me skiing. We were in Utah at the time and we went to one of the biggest ski resorts in the country, Park City. Before we left on our trip, I can remember being very excited to finally go skiing. That excitement slowly turned to dread as I saw the mountain that I was supposed to slide down on two pieces of wood. That feeling of dread just multiplied as a got on top of the mountain and looked down. It looked like I was looking down the face of a cliff and certain death. I can still remember seeing the land around me like a gigantic map. Despite my dad’s encouragement to stand up and try to ski, I just sat down and I slid down on my bottom very, very slowly. My dad quickly got impatient with my progress down the mountain and proceeded to leave me. While my dad denies that he ever did this, I remember. By the time that I had gotten about half way down, my dad had passed my about a dozen times, and I was thoroughly sick of the snow. Then, out of the blue, a very patient mother saw me sliding on my bottom and decided to teach me how to ski. She got me on my feet and showed me how to get down the mountain actually using my skis. When I got down, my dad was astonished to see me coming down not on my but, but on my skis! What was even more astonishing was that I had decided that skiing was not all that bad. So I went up and few more times this time with my dad. Ever since then skiing has been my favorite sport (though perhaps it ties with basketball).

            Now that I think back on this experience, I realize that there is a valuable lesson to learn from this. Sometimes, we all need help and assistance; and sometimes we are just not patient enough to give someone else our time and assistance. If we just learn the gift of patience and service, we can accomplish anything, even teaching an 8 year old how to ski.

            Another lesson that I learned from this was that we can learn to do anything if just keep at it long enough. In my experience, I was forced to keep at it all the way down the mountain. Thus, I did eventually get the hang of it. So, if we can just find the courage to try something new and not give up, we can master that thing that we want to do. All we have to do is try. A quote that exemplifies this says, “Triumph, is just a try with an umph on it”. If we take this advice to heart, there is not much that we cannot do.