“I’m going to tell you something every successful person has to do—including you. Believe it or not, every successful person in this world has jumped … You’re eventually going to have to jump. You cannot just exist in this life. You have got to try and live.”
The last two sentences are key. We all know what it feels like to merely exist; it’s the feeling of forcing yourself to get up in the morning to tend to a life that is mundane, dutiful, hard and seemingly meaningless. We’ve all wondered what it means to live and live fully. There is a kind of magical allure to it, it almost seems like a Utopian dream. And if we go on believing it is so, we can do ourselves the injustice of believing that that reality IS merely a dream. And so we never aspire for it. We never put in the effort to live that dream, effectively making it a reality for us. We convince ourselves that “this is life” and that “this is just the ways things are”. We never realize that this is simply a way of seeing the world, and like all perspectives, they can change and change completely if need be. We never realize we can shed old perspectives and adopt radically new ones, and in doing so, completely change the way we see and relate to the world. We never realize we can live that Utopian dream, simply by believing it.
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| Steve Harvey on Jumping, Using Our Gifts, and God |
Believe that there is more to life. Believe in your heart of hearts that there is more. Believe in that truth and see for yourself what happens.
“So I say to you, ask and it will be given; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” — Jesus
“And I’ll tell you why I call it jumping. See, God when he created all of us gave every last one of us a gift at birth. He never created a soul without endowing them with a gift. You’ve got to identify that gift.”
I too believe that each of us have gifts; strengths unique unto ourselves that only we can provide the world with. I believe the truth of that gift can be found within the heart. It is our hearts that are pumping, keeping us alive. It is our hearts that know our purpose. We come to this world with a gift, with a purpose. And it’s so important—for you and for the world—to identify that gift, as Steve has said. Not only will nurturing that gift transform you and your life, but sharing that gift with the world will transform the world too.
“But the only way for you to soar is you’ve got to jump. You’ve got to take that gift that’s packed away on your back, you’ve got to jump off that cliff and pull that cord. That gift opens up and provides the soar.”
This jump that we’re talking about here, is about taking a leap of faith. It’s about putting faith into your gift, into yourself, and into powers grander than we can conceive. And that no doubt is a scary thing to do because we’re stepping outside the realm of our comfort zones and tip-toeing into unknown territories. We cannot foresee what will happen in the dark. But we must have faith. We must trust ourselves and our gift.
“If you don’t ever use it, you’re just going to go to work. And if you end up going to work on the job every day that you hate going to—that ain’t living man. You’re just existing. At one point in time, you ought to see what living is like. But the only way to see what living is like is you’ve got to jump.”
We live in a system where we must work to survive. That is a given. Even the richest people have to work to maintain their riches. Work is something we ALL must do. But work isn’t life. The meaning of life isn’t to work and make money. That’s not what we’re here for, and we all know this because we intuitively sense that. If you believe in the notion that work is life, you’re again just existing.
And those two key words come up again—living and existing. Here’s a relevant quote from Oscar Wilde:
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
To get a taste of living, you’ve got to jump. You’ve got to abandon the world you know and go.
“And here’s the problem. Let me just be real with you. When you first jump, let me tell you something, your parachute will not open right away. I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you it did. But it don’t. When you jump it’s not going to open right away. You’re going to hit them rocks. You’re going to get some skin torn off of them cliffs. You’re going to get all your clothes torn up. You’re going to get some cuts on you. You’re going to be bleeding pretty bad. But eventually, the parachute HAS to open. That is a promise of God.”
When we jump, we’re kind of embarking on a journey. This journey inevitably is going to have its up’s and down’s. We’re going to get hurt. We’re going to encounter obstacles. We’re going to have to “slay dragons”. We’re going to have to go through some rough times. What gets us through? Our gift. Our faith. Our trust in bigger things. And eventually, our gift, faith and trust is the very thing that saves us. It brings us out to the other side. And when we get to the other side, we find we are transformed; we are wiser, more loving, more open. We know how to live now because we have jumped.
“Now, here’s another thing. You can play it safe, and deal without the cuts and the tears and you can stand on that cliff of life forever safe, but if you don’t jump I’ve got another promise I can make you: your parachute will never open—you’ll never know. You’ll never know what God really had for you.”
If we never embark on the journey and experience it for ourselves, we will never know. If we don’t nurture our gifts, we will never know our potential. If we don’t put our faith in ourselves to wander the unknown, we may never reveal its hidden treasures. If we never jump, we will never know how far we can soar!
“See your God has a wonderful life for you. Once again I’m going to refer to YOUR bible. Now you go down there and remember these scriptures but your bible says that he comes to give you life and give you life more abundantly. If I were you, I would jump. Because that’s the only way to get to that abundant life—you’ve got to jump man.”
I like how Steve, when talking about God, specifically puts stress on the YOUR. He goes, “See, YOUR God etc.” He implicitly makes it a point that we all have our own subjective interpretations for what God is; it could be Allah, it could be a Christian God, it could be a New Age perspective, it could be one based in scientific theory, it could be the universe.
Put faith in YOUR God and see what that does for you.
“At one point in time man, do yourself a favour, go see what God really do. God is holding you up man, he ain’t gon let you fall. He brang you this far and ain’t let you fall. Do yourself a favour man. Before you leave this world—before you die—jump. JUST JUMP ONE TIME! Just jump.”
We never take our leaps of faith because we believe we’re going to fall, and having to confront that reality is an experience our heart, mind, and spirit would rather not undergo. But you must, my friend. You must if you want to live.
Steve says to “just jump one time”. And I suggest this too. Because the first leap is always the hardest. It is new and foreign. But after that first jump, we get accustomed to it. We realize our fear isn’t so bad. Once we take the leap, it’s all simply trust and faith from there. And after that, it’s simply a matter of waiting.
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