You’re lying in a meadow. The warm grass brushes lightly against your skin. Sun beats down upon your smiling face. A butterfly flutters overhead, and a spring bud spirals down from the sky. It’s comfortably warm, and you allow your eyes to close for a moment…

You’re on a cliff. The wind howls around you, and the sun is unrelenting and angry. Red sky stains your sanity. Your arms are outspread, but you can’t look back—only ahead, to the sweeping forests of deep green and lakes nestled within granite crags. You take a deep breath, close your eyes for the last time. Muscles coil, you can almost hear the rustling of feathers behind you, feel the breeze on the wingtips…

You’re waiting. We’re all waiting. I’m waiting. For that rain of the heavens, the shot of the gun, the stampede that will drive us to flee. All we ever do is wait.

As humans, we don’t like making decisions. Don’t know which movie to watch? Ask a friend. Live or die? Leave it to the flip of a coin. Need to talk to that friend you’ve been putting off for months? Leave it for tomorrow.

Forget yesterday.

Until I here the rumble in the meadow of running feet, complacency will become the chains that weigh down my arms. Until lightning splits the sky and my footing slips, fear of the fall will overcome the freedom of flight.

Sometimes you have to leap.