What You Miss When You’re Afraid Of Messing Up

Recently, I was watching my youngest son, Brewer, fly his kite. He has always had a thing for kites.

Photo Credit: Brett Davies, Creative Commons

It reminded me of a time over a year ago when he had received a kite as a gift. It hung there in our laundry room for months, and almost daily he would beg me to fly it in the backyard. Every time he asked I would remind him that our backyard was full of trees and it would inevitably get stuck in a tree.

Well, he eventually wore me down.

And in a weak moment, I think on the 138th ask, I finally gave in.

I was getting ready to go out of town and I thought to myself, “if the kid wants to fly the kite in the backyard, we’ll fly it in the backyard.”

As you might imagine, about 10 minutes into our little kite adventure, just as I had predicted, the kite got caught in the tree. I thought for sure he was going to be crushed, but instead he just laughed.

As we headed inside, he grabbed my hand and gave me one of those smiles letting me know he had a blast.

It was a great lesson for me that I still haven’t forgotten.

It’s better to fly a kite and it get stuck in a tree, than to not fly the kite at all.

A friend of mine once said: Every opportunity has an expiration date and the cost of missing out can be greater than the cost of messing up.

You do realize there are some things worse than failure, right? So what’s your kite?

Time to face your fears and fly it anyway.