Some people just plunge ahead into the road and trust the folks in the cars to adjust.

I'm not one of them.

So I put my phone in my back pocket before looking left, then right, then left again. After crossing the street, I shift the basketball I've been spinning between my hands to the crook of my left arm. Pulling out my phone, I hit play on the podcast I was listening to with Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman as I walk along the soccer fields to the basketball courts.

Maybe it was the girl in my town who got hit when we were kids. She lived, but she became permanently disabled. It could've been the boy in my freshman-year class who got killed in a car accident with his dad on their way to practice after school. Or even my friend from college who got hit by a driver and died while guiding a bikepacking trip. Or maybe it's just an inherent distrust of other people. Maybe those car-related accidents have nothing to do with my significantly skeptical disposition.

As I reach the court, I toss the ball out in front of me with a substantial whip so the backspin will keep it close. That skepticism thing has been on my mind quite a bit recently. I've been thinking about it and trying to figure out whether or not it's really serving me. There are so many instances in my life that I can point to where it would make sense why I've adapted to become increasingly skeptical but I can't help but think that all I've actually done is build a deeply entrenched confirmation bias.

What would life be like if I didn't always feel like I had to "hope for the best, plan for the worst?"

I'm chasing a shot that ricocheted off the back of the rim and made a break for the sloping hill toward the fields. There's a young girl with straw-white pigtails lying in the grass with a woman I'm guessing is her mom. She's giggling and waving her arms back and forth like you would if you were lying in the snow making a snow angel.

I stop short.

Slapping the ball, rather than grabbing it, I get it to bounce in place while I plant my feet and straighten up. I'm looking at the girl and I have to shake my head to snap myself out of it. When I worked at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, there was this sign posted around the mountain—usually at the top and bottom of the chairlifts where people would congregate. It had a picture of a snow angel and text under it that read, "She was 5. You were going 50" in reference to a death that happened as a result of a collision.

I can't believe I've never connected these dots before.

Setting aside my distrust of drivers and roadway traffic in general, I've seen more ski-slope collisions than I can count. I've experienced a few myself while snowboarding.

Including when I got hit and experienced a traumatic brain injury.

Damn.

Sure, some people plunge ahead and expect others to adjust. And some of us are the opposite, with a significantly skeptical disposition.

But there has to be a happy medium, right?

I want to believe there is.

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Our Daily MAP Year Prompt
361/365

Are you a plunger or a planner?

onward. 

For more on this daily column and The MAP Year Project, read the backstory here. And if you know someone who'd appreciate this, pass it along.