"Men must know their limitations."- Clint Eastwood

This I Believe

I believe in limitations.  That doesn't mean that I quit things, but it does mean that I know when enough is enough.  As everybody knows there are specific universal laws that you cannot overcome such as the law of gravity, the fact that humans can’t sprout wings and fly just because they want to, and of course  death.  You can’t defy those laws, but you can stretch them.  Limitations can be stretched or changed but never removed.  Let me be more specific to me.

When I was fourteen I was riding my motorcycle with my Dad.  I have been riding a dirt bike since I was seven years old and I know I am confident in my riding ability to control my bike.  This trip we decided to go up the canyon and our ride was getting close to over.  As we neared the exit of the trail I started to race my dad. This is typical in our rides. As I neared him he sped up so I did the same.  By doing this I burst my comfort zone and passed my limit of a safe speed.  By increasing my speed and leaving my comfort zone behind my reaction time wasn't there.  As you can imagine I crashed.  This was not my first crash but this one defiantly left its mark.  Besides the normal cuts and bruises I busted open my foot.  My foot was hurting and there was blood when I took off my boot.  Its not normal to bleed when you have great riding boots that can take a beating, but other than that I wasn't worried about it too much.  It was getting dark and my bike was fine so we rode home.  My Dad was more worried than I was and suggested we go to the hospital just to get it checked out.

What happened next I was not prepared for.  After a botched surgery I had major limitations for the whole summer.  Meaning no swimming, quitting my baseball team, missing out on trek, quitting my summer job, no dirt bike riding, and crutches the whole summer.  During my recovery time I had a lot of time to think about what had happened and what I could have done differently. 

How would setting limitations have changed the outcome? How many things do we need limitations for?  Why do limitations need to be made?  Setting limitations does not mean you are boring or not adventurous. Everyone has different limitations for different things.   What I learned that summer was that if I wanted to continue having an awesome life and feeling free to do the things I enjoyed I needed to set some limitations.  Who would have thought that limitations could be freeing?  I now know that in order to keep dirt bike riding fun and safe I need to set my own limitations when I ride.   Sometimes breaking your comfort zone is not a good thing.  Set limitations.  Know when to quit.  We all will learn eventually.  I already did.