World 4-2
Breathing Room
NOT Livin’ on the Edge
Do you like stunts?
It sure is cool when things are pushed to the extreme.
One of the most insane stunts I remember as a kid was a guy going between 2 planes.
Nowadays, a lot of stunts are CGI, which is about as exciting as watching someone else type on a computer.
My ‘Stunt’
In Estonia, I was out biking one day in the North-West countryside. It was all road, forest, and beach.
I was travelling light – all I had was a bag of jellybeans (I knew enough to take sugar with me).
After a swim and plenty of biking, I felt a hypo coming on. No worries, plenty of jellybeans to munch on. I kept biking around, munching.
After a while, I realised I’d run out. Surely, 1 bag of jellybeans should’ve been enough to stop the hypo?
Alas, no.
I started to panic a bit. I was all alone. I didn’t have a phone. There were no other people around. The place was beautiful, but here I was, in a world of trouble.
All I could do was pray and keep biking.
What a glorious sight met my eyes! Thank God!
Like stumbling on fresh water in a desert, a truck stop in the middle of nowhere with exactly what I needed was right there.
Sugar, sugar, and more sugar. Soft drinks, lollies, I ate like it was my last meal on death row. I was saved, but I had also been a fool.
Epilogue
Years later I did a ‘stunt walk’ (in the Slovenian mountains) I crammed my pack with food, especially plenty of lollies. And it turned out to be very wise.
Playing it Safe
I don’t plan to live in a padded room wrapped in bandages so that I never skin a knee, BUT there is a place for ‘smart risks’.
Now when I go for trips, I go by the engineering principle of having a factor of safety or redundancy (backup if something goes wrong). Simply, it means working out what I think is enough, then multiplying that by 2x, 3x (or even more).
Do I think 1 banana will be enough for a walk? I pack 2. Plus some lollies. And another piece of fruit.
I take more than I think I will ever need.