The Moment I Stopped Thinking

Recently, when driving down the busiest street in my town, I saw a tiny black ball in the middle of my lane. I thought nothing of it until I was about to drive over it, and I just so happened to see that black ball move just a little bit.

Now, what could I have done in this situation? It could have just been the wind moving it, or it could have been my imagination, and honestly, it was none of my business. Plus, I had somewhere I had to be. But no. I forgot that consequences existed. Before I even knew exactly what I was doing, I pulled over, opened the door of my car, and ran. I ran straight across an intersection and into the road where the tiny black ball was. The oncoming traffic came to a super sudden stop with me standing over this black ball. I leaned down and picked up a kitten with two broken legs that was no bigger than my hand.

After bringing the kitten back into my car, I had to ask the hard question: now what? But I was already neck deep. I chose to help, and I was going to see it through. After a few hours of phone calls, I found it a home, and I’m happy to report that it is doing very well now.

This unexpected experience reminded me of something. A lot of rock climbers have some advice for newbies: forget the ground exists; forget the consequences of falling and climb as hard as you can. It’s really good advice unless you’re afraid of hurting yourself. Obviously, if you pretend the ground doesn’t exist, it is much more likely that you could fall in a bad way and injure yourself. However, some people just don’t care.

The point of the story is that, although thinking through things is one of the many things that make humans amazing, we don’t always need to think.

Sometimes it’s better to forget that the ground exists and just take action. Who cares how you’ll fall if you won’t fall at all?