All these years people have been trying to convince me that peer pressure is a bad thing, but I would like to make a case for peer pressure, because today I jumped off a bridge and it was thrilling and terrifying and would not have happened if not for some good, old-fashioned public support.
Let me say that I am probably not the first person you would assume might be scared of extreme heights and sports. I was the ropes course director for three summers at Girl Scout camp and I climb rocks and other such things infrequently but with enthusiasm. Don't get me wrong, small noises at night completely turn me into a pansy, but climbing and jumping off things is generally not my issue.
Today as part of our training, we climbed, repelled, zip-lined and ropes coursed our way around this area outside of Adelboden, and the time came to do a pendulum swing, which is where you jump off of this small little platform attached to a 25 meter bridge (don't ask me for the conversion to feet, because I'm much too tired for math right now). As soon as the rope was attached to my full body harness, I climbed over the railing that is supposed to stop cars and proceeded to scare the crap out of myself by looking down to the open air where I was supposed to jump. Holy. Crap. Free falling is pretty much anti-evolution, and therefore my panic is completely excusable, though inconvenient. I stood on that little metal panel for 3 minutes, and the entire time about 10 of my Swiss nearest and dearest chanted, made jokes and somehow convinced me to step off into the abyss.
Since I have yet to try heroin and no one has talked me into other destructive behavior , I think I can fairly say that peer pressure is a wonderful, guiding force that generally has lead me to do things that make me a more interesting person. There have been the occasionally missteps, of course (goucho pants?), but I would most certainly not have jumped off a bridge today unless all the cool kids were going to do it, too.
Next time, dive off. :)
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