David McElroy

Imagine someone dumping you out into the sky about three miles above the ground — with nothing but a huge box of parts with which to assemble your own personal airplane.

Imagine frantically trying to figure out how everything works and then putting the parts together — as you came closer to crashing into the ground every second. Then let’s assume you could assemble this little plane and you manage to start the engine.

Then you can try to learn to fly — as you watch the ground get closer and closer, so you’re constantly scared of what’s about to happen.

The more I experience of life, that’s what it has seemed like to me. The problem is that when we’re young, we don’t even know enough to be scared. We don’t know how ignorant we are. We don’t know how much we need to learn. And we constantly overestimate how far we’ve come on the long and winding journey to safely navigate the skies of our own lives.

I’ve been thinking about this for days. As I’ve found myself going through another big transition in my life, I’m more aware than ever of how far I’ve come and how close I’ve come to wasting my life.

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