Thoughts of quitting...

[nightjumps 1]

Well considering you're probably one of the last of the System Administrators on the planet with a job... you've probably got the rest of the planet's machines to take care of... so your brevity is understandable.

Now get back to work so MAE Central doesn't crash... I don't want to miss out on my nightly chess.net

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Well considering you're probably one of the last of the System Administrators on the planet with a job... you've probably got the rest of the planet's machines to take care of... so your brevity is understandable.

Now get back to work so MAE Central doesn't crash... I don't want to miss out on my nightly chess.net

HAHA! Whats worse is I'm a Linux sys-admin, so being specialized in an OS thats in the minority makes ya a little less marketable. The good news is that the gov't. is looking for Linux/Unix guys hard right now. I've got some friends that work for a gov't contractor thats looking for ppl like crazy, so I will most likely be going there soon and since its a gov't job I'll have plenty of time to post.

Edited to add: Whats your background in computers if you don't mind me asking?

-syn

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

[nightjumps 1]

Beginning to end...

SysAdmin WinNT4.0 ->
MS Access Development->
Data Integrity Project Manager (Oracle) ->
Sales Engineer of Fiber Optic Systems ->
Management; Systems Implementation & Data Integrity->
GE Smallworld GIS certified SysAdmin, DB Admin & Applications Developer ->
Laid Off ->
College Professor (communications) & Tandem Driver.

[Synapse 0]

Awesome, lets see here...

SysAdmin - some Win2000, mostly RH Linux
Development - Bash and Perl system administration tools (automation stuff, node/network monitoring tools, etc.)
Database experience - limited... used MySQL and PostgreSQL in a few of my development projects
sales - none
management - nadda
laid off - not yet

The teaching thing is awesome, you sound like you would be good at it... some ppl just have a way of explaining things better than others.

Sorry to everyone else for turning this into a mini-resume.

-syn

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

[JoeyRamone 0]

Well if ya ever need a job let me know. I run a IT consulting firm in Chicago....

[jumpinfarmer 0]

This is something I think of a lot. I try to reason it out by thinking how dangerous every thing else I do is. I've been a volunteer firefighter for 14 years and have never thought about the danger. I'm a farmer, one of the most dangerous jobs in the US. I rarely think about the consequenses of some of the dumb things I do on the farm. Last weekend a guy I knew got killed on a snowmobile. The next day I went riding with friends and didn't think much about the danger. His death does bother me. Like myself he was a young single farmer. When he went out that day for a ride he never thought he wasn't comming back.
I guess we never know whats around the next corner. If we did we would all go through life worrying about every thing we do.
When I go to the DZ I'm always nervous till I jump the first time. Then it goes away. I refuse to let myself think that I may not go home to whatever I was planning on for tomarrow.
The people excitment and fellowship of skydiving make it worth it.

[hmatousek 0]

Just wanted to add my 2 cents.

As stated before: always respect danger

Never be afraid to ask questions. I see a lot of people (especially men) become to big of skygods to ask questions of others. If you don't know the people you are jumping with ask them about thier experience level and know your limits. The way I look at it is and in every aspect of skydiving I am the one making the decisions. If I feel something is unsafe or I am unsure I ask, even if the tandem instructor is yelling at me to get out of the door.

Life doesn't have to be perfect in order to be beautiful!

[GravityGirl 0]

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I think there are numerous ways to handle what you're feeling and thinking. You can not deal with it - quit the sport, or as one poster mentioned "try not to think about it." Quitting the sport solves the problem quickly. Trying not to think about it puts the whole problem off - for awhile, until someone dies in front of you and it becomes something you can't avoid anymore.

Or you can deal with it. Accept that because you jump out of airplanes at some time you will experience pain, physical and/or emotional. You will reassess the risk/benefit equation repeatedly over the years.

Skydiving can take you to the highest of highs and to the lowest of lows, and there's no shame in admitting you don't want to experience either. If you want the highs, then you have to accept the lows.

Happily, the lows aren't nearly as frequent as the highs.

As Bonnie said -

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If the day comes when the joy doesn't balance or outweigh the pain, then hang it up.

Good advice.

And I've been on the edge many times. Wondering. But at my lowest hour, the only people that KNEW, the only souls brave enough to pick me up off the floor was an entire community of skydivers. I couldn't live anywhere else. Because life is full of pain. But rarely do you find the joy that you find in this community.

Enough of that. None of you are going to hold this blatent display of emotion against me are you?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peace and Blue Skies!
Bonnie ==>Gravity Gear!

[hookitt 0]

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Enough of that. None of you are going to hold this blatent display of emotion against me are you?

Yep.. sure will, in warm embrace and understanding. That was beautiful. Thanks for putting that into words.

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

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Well if ya ever need a job let me know. I run a IT consulting firm in Chicago....

Sweeet

-syn

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

[Synapse 0]

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This is something I think of a lot. I try to reason it out by thinking how dangerous every thing else I do is. I've been a volunteer firefighter for 14 years and have never thought about the danger. I'm a farmer, one of the most dangerous jobs in the US. I rarely think about the consequenses of some of the dumb things I do on the farm.

Wow, you sound a lot like a large majority of the people I know from the town I grew up in. There was a lot of rural farm land and no full time firefighters, so there were a ton of farmers and a lot of volunteers. I personally didn't work on a farm, but I have a lot of friends who did and I've got a ton of respect for anyone who can run one and turn over a profit with it in today's market. Thanks for the advice man all of this helps a lot.

Quote

As stated before: always respect danger

I always make an effort not to get cocky in anything I spend a lot of time doing b/c thats when you quite learning. And when that happens you fall behind... I doubt this sport isn't very forgiving of that. Thanks for the advice!

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And I've been on the edge many times. Wondering. But at my lowest hour, the only people that KNEW, the only souls brave enough to pick me up off the floor was an entire community of skydivers. I couldn't live anywhere else. Because life is full of pain. But rarely do you find the joy that you find in this community.

Enough of that. None of you are going to hold this blatent display of emotion against me are you?

If this post has taught me anything its that this community is unbelievably supportive of all of its members. All of the encouraging words have helped tremendously. And you have an awesome resource Bon, you've helped me out with this and several other things that you absolutely didn't have to... can't thank you enough!
-syn

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

[Ron 7]

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AS for feelings of fear due to reading the incident reports, my suggestion is stop.

Bad move....

Try:
Read them all. Fiqure out what they did to get themselves hurt or killed and take steps to not let it happen to you.

Fact is you can't hide for the Incident reports. Sooner or later you will be on a DZ when someone hits....I hope its not someone close to you. You can't hide when you lose a close friend.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Ron 7]

Fear is a good thing. It keeps you sharp.

As long as you are afraid you will error on the side of saftey. When you stop doing that...you are inviting injury.

You can do almost anything with a focus on saftey. We sent people to the moon thinking about saftey. If we didn't focus on saftey, I doubt the missons would have worked.

One of the Major reason you said you didn't think of the dangers of firefighting is...you were helping people. Firefighting is a needed duty. Skydiving is not needed. You do it for fun. You don't fight fires for fun, you do it to protect.

Driving...Man I hate it when people use driving a car as an example...Most people today need cars...you don't need to skydive.

So you ask why you put yourself in great danger just for fun....and its a good question.

Im not going to answer it for you....I never answer questions like this for people.

You can die, you can get hurt. You WILL see people get hurt, and you might see someone die.

When you are trying to save a guys life, and he dies while you are standing there with his blood on your hands. Then you talk to his family and feel just the smallest hint of the pain that they are feeling.....It makes you wonder.

Why risk this for fun?

Only you can answer that.

For me, so far its worth it.

You can PM me if you like

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[freeflybella 0]

For me it's important NOT to put aside the emotional side and only focus on the rational. Especially when it comes to fear. Nothing is more basic within you than emotion.

And you certainly didn't start skydiving for exclusively rational reasons.

Allow your emotions to guide you - stay close to them or they will always have the ability to appear from 'nowhere' and startle you. That's when you start questioning your actions and yourself.

Allow your emotions to guide you - and temper them with reason.

I can't imagine a DZ full of non-emotional, rational people.

Action expresses priority. - Mahatma Ghandi

[Ron 7]

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stay close to them or they will always have the ability to appear from 'nowhere' and startle you.

That is damn well said

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[Synapse 0]

Like you said in your last post I don't think it would be good to stop reading the incidents, reading them has already opened my eyes to a few possible dangerous situations that I may find myself in and how to avoid/deal with them.

You are right about the firefighting stuff, it was probably more accepted because it wasn't just for my benefit... not to mention the support from family.

As for the car analogy, I agree somewhat that cars are needed (for the most part) and we can't get around it. That being said, I think the people that use this analogy do have a somewhat valid point that a lot of what we do on a daily basis is very dangerous, even though it is necessary. The fact still remains though that skydiving isn't one of the things we have to do so we/I am faced with the decision of whether or not to add one more danger to my life that I don't have to.

Freeflybella: As Ron said, that was very well said.

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Allow your emotions to guide you - and temper them with reason.

This balance still seems to be something I have to work on since right now which way the scale tips depends on what time of day it is.

-syn

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

[megan123 0]

Last year as I was in the plane and seconds away from doing my first jump in 6 months, I realized that I was completely frightened. I kept thinking, ug..what the hell am I doing??? My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding like crazy. I looked at my instructor and said, "I'm scared." I will never forget what he said to me: "You should always be a little bit scared. If you ever get to a point where you are 0% nervous, you shouldn't be in the sport."
Being a little bit scared keeps you on your toes and that is a good thing. Being "scared shitless" scared is scary in itself. The fear breeds more fear (for me, anyway). When I get to that point, I always think of the euphoric feeling I get the second I jump out of the plane. There's nothing like it in the world, and that always helps to calm my nerves.

[teach1400 0]

I know there are alot of posts on this thread already but I am going to throw in my two cents anyway. I would just like to relay a conversation that I had over dinner a few weeks ago. There were about 35 skydivers, some of the best in the country and in the world having sushi, and at my table this is a paraphrase of what was said.

A gentelmen with 2500 jumps was telling me that I should train for all circumstances, and that he has 11 intentional cutaways. When my reserve is ready for a repack get down to 1000' and chop. Make sure that I can do it. Train for the worst. To me that is not training for the worst, that is putting yourself in the worst. His rational was that he wants to be prepared for whetever is thrown at him, and that if it's his time, then there is nothing he is going to do about it.

I saw that is a load of bulls&*t. If I have a good canopy over head, I am keeping it there. My point is that we do what we can to be safe. I jump with a cypres, an RSL, and I make sure that I pull at a safe altitude. I know the people I jump with and I make sure that I am comfortable wiuth the winds and the DZ that I am at. Your safety is primarily in your hands. If you have concerns about getting hurt, stay away from hook turns and other risky maneuvers if you don't have proper training. I only have about 90 jumps, but I know that one day I will have 9000.

If most of the fatality reports and other incident reports said things like "total equipment mal" or "could NOT have been prevented" then I would probably reconsider the sport. But almost all, I try not to say never, always, none, or all, the reports say that there was some kind of human judgment error which could have been prevented, or a sfety device that could have prevented the incident. Anyway, I know that you already said your sticking with it, and I am glad to hear it, I hope you enjoy a long skydiving career or whatever you call it.

Blue Skies
Russ

[yarik 0]

Though Syn said to all of you guys "thank you", I want one more time thank to everyone taking part in this discussion! I can't think of any other community that would be so supportive and understanding to each other!

My special respect to GravityGirl coz I'm a father of 3.5 year old daughter and can understand what she feels and I bet she knows perfectly what I feel or even better - what my wife feels - we both skydive (crazy parents).

Thinking of the fear and price for the joy - many perfect descriptions were given here I have not much to add. One thing I'd like to stress on is always BE HONEST with yourself do you really want to do this because you want to do this or because you want to look cool or impress someone? After our daughter was born my wife didn't want to come back to sport at all - she was very much concerned about her mother's responsibility and I can't even think on blaming her for that, but when one year later she decided to come back... don't know why, but I had a feeling that she was not quite honest with herself and she wanted to return just to be on the same track with me.... I was very worried about her until I really saw that she enjoys the sport and would do it even if I don't. What I want to say here - don't ever let peer pressure affect your go-nogo decision. Not supportive, but as I said - for yourself - jumping in attempt of trying to be cool and brave - I think that jumping with such attitude would affect your ability to handle emergency or any unusual situation.

You mentioned that all your fears are gone once you come to the dz - great, I think with the current situation as you describe it - you're on the right track - you really might be hitting the wall that nightjumps described and I hope you'll get over it, but if you keep coming to the dz and find your concerns are still with you, even more if for a long time, after say 10 suggested "all about yourself jumps" you feel that it's not yours that you shouldn't do it.... I'd probably suggest quitting... at least for some time, later on say in half a year you may want to come back and really have fun and joy, just keep in touch with your sky buddies!

As for the choices and necessity - all depends on the way you want to put it - i.e. I could take a train to work (statistically they are safer than cars), but I take car cause it's more comfortable and so on, should I be concerned about safety in my every step this way? I think this is a misleading way of thinking. Absolutely different would be - if I had a bad (or very good sleepless night and in the morning I doubt my ability to handle the car in emergency - I would take the train - this would be smart, but this is not about quitting the car driving to the safer trains for entire time.

I prefer the thought that when it's your time - it's your time... For my current job I get to fly as a passenger in commercial airliners a lot and to be honest - that scares me a lot more than skydiving. I'm not sure about the number of accidents, but the number of people killed in airline accidents is extremely higher than that from skydiving. Do I have to change my job that gives me $$$ for life (and for the jumps of cause ;)??? to be on the safe side and have less/no air travel? I don't think it'll save me if my time comes. I had a friend who kept away from any risky activity and eventually died in car crash (this is not a dummy example, this is true)... I have another friend who (from my point of view) absolutely recklessly challenges the world in any possible way - skydiving, flying a hang glider, paraglider, scuba, climbing and many times ignoring safety... He got out of so many bad situations basically uninjured and still alive (thanks God!) I guess it's all about luck, destiny, father Lord or whatever you call it.

You're right, skydiving is not one of the things we have to do, but for me and for my sweetheart - it is something we really have to do to really live the life, to really enjoy life, it's not just entertainment - it's part of our life and spiritually is far more important than our jobs careers or whatever. One thing that could really balance it - our child and our responsibility for her future, but for this reason - we never do anything stupid and apply all we can for the sake of safety - learn, practice, be always on guard for the shit to happen. At least “over there” I will know that I did everything to stay safe and with my beloved ones.

Listen to yourself, make a decision and never regret, regardless of what decision you make! (and don’t be afraid to change your decision in the future if you decide something different – life goes on and variables and constants of it’s equation don’t stay the same, so the result can be different from time to time)

Sorry if it’s too long…
Blue Skies!

[DickMcMahon 0]

Thanks Lee for starting this thread. There's some
great stuff here that I've saved to re-read when
those fear thoughts start to come.

Unlike you, my problem is BEFORE going to the DZ,
not afterward. I drive 100 miles alone to get there,
and that's when the fear demons do their best work.

Driving back home after jumping ... I'm cool, and feeling great!

[Synapse 0]

Cool, hope this helps out man. I know its helped me tremendously.

-syn

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

[JoeyRamone 0]

Sweeet Always nice to have options! The company I work for acquired a business in Chicago about a year ago, its a trading firm on the Chicago Stock Exchange. They use a local consulting firm for their IT related needs, so theoretically that could be you and I may already know you. ***
Could be, We do work for them...

[Synapse 0]

?!... PM'ing you now.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

[dnewcomer 0]

Syn, Kudos! You started a very thought-provoking thread -- it appears to have stimulated some serious introspection.

Skydiving isn't the only very dangerous "extreme sport," in fact, scuba diving, white-water kayaking, and rock/ice climbing may be even more dangerous. I find participants in those activities to be very similar to skydivers in psyche and character. They often think the same thoughts and ask themselves the same questions you have raised.

In my profession, I am forced to deal with illness and death -- usually from serious diseases such as cancer, but sometimes from trauma. Trauma deaths commonly occur in young people and are usually very unexpected. I believe death is Nature's way of reminding each of us of our own mortality. It forces us to stop and look at our daily thoughts and lives in a different, better way. We consider what is important to us in life. Skydiving is a similar reminder, because you realize a serious mistake unanswered could be fatal. A mis-step in skydiving isn't like mishitting the ball in a tennis match with a friend...no serious consequences there.

So...why do we do it? Why take the risk? For the excitement; the physical and intellectual challenge; the emotional high; the friendships; the fun; the travel; the beauty; the scenery; the sensory overload; the experiences unique to a two or three mile freefall -- with friends. All these and more.

Participating in sport skydiving is an experience only a few people on the planet ever indulge. But what an experience!! When I did the 30,000 ft skydive at the WFFC last August, I felt it was an experience of a lifetime. And so it was!!

In Antoine de Saint-Exupery's fable of THE LITTLE PRINCE a child of the royal family of a tiny planet visits Earth to seek the meaning of life. He fails to find it with his eyes, so he begins asking others where to pursue his vision. No one has the answer until a wise fox tells him: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye."

Follow your heart, Syn. You've got to trust your instincts even if they go against reason. Dr. Alfred Adler once said, "The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions." How true.

Blue ones,
Dave

"The meaning of life is adventure." --Alfred North Whitehead

[Synapse 0]

All very well said Dave, getting to peek into other skydivers minds has really helped me out. Advice from those not in the sport just isn't the same.

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Dr. Alfred Adler once said, "The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions." How true.

That is a great quote btw, my biggest fear is being an old man and realizing that I have missed out on life despite living for so many years.

-syn

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin