I’m a fence rider from way back when. You know what a fence rider is don’t you?  We’re those people who sit, walk even sometimes stand on one foot on top of a fence instead of jumping off to one side or the other and taking a stand for what we want or who we are.  Oh, yeah, sure I’m not always a fence rider. There are some things I can totally jump to one side or the other of the fence and take a stand. Like making sure I let as many people as possible who live in Texas know that there are about to be swarms of 18-20 different species of hummingbirds migrating through Texas on the way to Mexico and there is nothing for them to eat so it is up to us to make sure we fill up those feeders and keep them filled with fresh food till about the end of October (one cup sugar, four cups water stir til dissolved). Things like that or,  say, getting married….I can jump and take a stand on that for myself for sure!

But I’ve been riding fences for so long that I can sometimes not even realize that I’m riding the fence on something.  This morning my mentor Coach held my feet to the fire about a project that I was working on for a friend that had hit the wall because they wanted the position that I was flirting with to be a full time position. I had to get really honest with myself and realize that with my Coaching, writing, blog talk radio interviewing, school and volunteer work, well….I’d already made up my mind about where my priorities were somewhere inside of me awhile back it’s just that the memo hadn’t made it up to the conscious part of my brain yet.

Today in my Mass Communication class we learned a little bit more about the history of the programming industry (radio, television, film, etc.).  Did you know that Dr. Lee De Forest who called himself “the father of radio”, but actually it was Reginald Fessenden who demonstrated to the public about wireless telephony, died pretty much penniless and bankrupt?  In 1910, Dr. De Forest staged a live musical broadcast with Italian tenor Enrico Caruso.   Dr. DeForest spent most of his life working on the wireless telephone to create a vehicle for entertainment, but he just wasn’t that good with business.  The end product of Dr. De Forest’s efforts gives me nightmares.  And this was a man who jumped off the fence and made a stand but he still didn’t get to realize the rewards of his efforts.

Shoot, at least when we’re riding the fence we can imagine any number of results from our dreams without being found out  for sure that we could or couldn’t do something! Right?

Maybe when we clear away the debris of our neurotic need to hide and try to control the balance of the outcome of our lives and instead enjoy the ride from whichever side of the fence we end up jumping.

It is fun to ride the fence but eventually you do wind up getting a whole lot of splinters in the end.  Besides, just because you jump to one side of the fence doesn’t mean after experiencing what that is like and making a real effort you can’t decide to crawl through the fence to the other side to experience that side.  Whatever you do, it is okay. You are not wrong or right. What I’m figuring out though is that jumping off is about allowing yourself to fully engage in life.

What are you waiting for?

Bike riding on the fence