A five year old neighbor boy was riding his bike this weekend and in the few minutes that his family stepped inside to attend to something else – he took a tumble. Nothing serious, in fact, as far as tumbles go it was fairly low on the Richter scale catastrophe, but to him, it was clearly a big deal. Unfortunately, no matter how loud he cried, mom was nowhere to be found. So I drop my car washing rag and ran over to help. Once we were sure there were no broken bones, gushing blood or other serious injury we were able to discern the root cause of his tears, it was a rip in his bike seat.
“Wow! look at that,” I exclaimed.
“What?” he asked confused, thinking a rip was the end of the world.
“Your bike has a scar!” I said
And he smiled and giggled just a little as he wiped his eyes and said “Oh yeah! just like me” and he pointed to his legs.
“Me too,” I said, “I’ve got bunches of them – knees, arms, elbows…”
“Scars are cool!” He said
“Yeah, they kinda are, aren’t they?”
I just listened to the graduation speech Randy Pausch, the professor who gave that remarkable “Last Lecture” at Carnegie Mellon after learning of his pancreatic cancer and thought of this conversation with my neighbor boy. In this graduation speech Randy talks about how he doesn’t regret the mistakes he’s made or the embarrassing moments of his life, but of the things not done, the chances not taken and the risks not dared. For Randy, fortunately, there are few. For many of us, there are a few too many. Once this five year old boy realized that the damage to his seat was a mark of adventure, the result of pushing harder and trying more, it became a badge of honor, something cool.
Why are so many of us unwilling to make mistakes, unwilling to push just a little harder, afraid of damage. With a little black tape his granddad was able to fix the seat “good as new,” but the boy still knows what happened. And when I asked him about it a couple days later he smiled and said everything was good. Cuts, rips, scars, cracks, scratches, dents, etc. are the evidence of living. The more there are, there more stories there are to tell. If it’s been a while since you or your stuff got a scar, consider pushing the limits a little harder. And if you want the motivation to live life consciously and deliberately, watch the videos of Randy Pausch. It’s time to stop playing it safe. Get a scar!
