A 10-Year-Old Boy Gave Me A Good Life Lesson

AoE Prompt #1 — Are You a “Yes” or “No” Person?

I used to say no a lot.

Not to things that I should be saying no to — such as doing something only out of obligation so I wouldn’t hurt someone’s feelings, no matter how difficult it was to me. I said yes to those things. Nice girls do that, right? I wanted to be a nice girl.

Anything that seemed dangerous or uncomfortable, though, would get a resounding no. Well, unless someone else needed something done for them. Once again, the nice girl would face the dangerous and uncomfortable if someone else needed something done for them.

But for things about me, I stayed within certain parameters. I had an eye for adventure but never would do anything adventurous myself. I stayed away from everything that scared me. That was a long list.

I remember watching someone parasail back in the old days, when parasailing was more than a chair lift ride over the water. They first got in a ski position behind the boat, and suddenly they were upright in the water and slowly began to rise in the air. The sail was attached and they would soon be riding the wind. It was beautiful. They looked like a flying butterfly. I loved it, but I knew I could never do anything like that.

A friend and his brother and I went to visit a high school teacher who had quit teaching when we graduated to take photographs at a whitewater rafting center in the mountains. All of a sudden we were going rafting. Our former teacher had to work unexpectedly, so she arranged it.

I made sure we were in a raft with a really good guide. He knew the river and knew how to maneuver the raft through the whitewater to keep us in the raft. It was fun. Well, except for that fear of falling out, but I trusted this guide to protect me.

We were the rescue raft, which meant we were following the rest of the group, helping those who had issues on the water. There was this family who had chosen a raft without a guide. After we rescued them three times, our guide said he was going to help them for a while.

“You'll be fine,” he said.

I panicked. We were left with my friend, his brother, this other guy, and his 10-year old son.

My friend’s brother said, “Don’t worry, I have never rafted but taught canoeing at camp several summers. I can guide us.”

Within three minutes he had popped out of our raft, and we lost him in the water. Our raft went careening down a patch of whitewater at rapid speed. I panicked.

This ten-year-old kid in our raft. I worried about him. I didn’t want him to be scared. As we were flying into a wooded bank at a high rate of speed, though, he started laughing. The rest of us couldn’t help but join in.

“Paddle!” someone screamed. I think it was me. We got the raft to a safe place, pulled on some rocks, and stayed there laughing hysterically for a long while.

I learned something that day. I want to die laughing. Taking chances and seeking adventure produces lifetime memories. I’d rather my life end on a runaway raft laughing hysterically than from a car randomly running into my house and killing me as I sat on my couch and watched TV ( a local news story I once read).

I say yes these days. I also learned that instead of being a good girl, I wanted to be a strong woman who was good, but who also discerned the right time for me to say yes and no.

Life is better when you seek adventure and overcome things that scare you.

Thanks to Melissa Bee and the Age of Empathy for this wonderful first prompt.

Here’s a response from another of my friends Bingz Huang.