Maxim: “There are risks and costs to action.

But they are far less than the long-range risks of

comfortable inaction.” 35th President of the United States of America, John F. Kennedy

Character Trait: Endurance

A Faulty Program of Action

I have not yet escaped the second age of man, but in my acquaintance with it I have been

the donee of its lucrative largesse in the form of scholarship. To some extent, it’s been

constructive, and at other times I’ve learned such futile facts as that Seth Rogen and Evan

Goldberg started writing cult comedy Superbad at 13 just to see if they could. But not always

does wisdom, whether bootless or enriching, come in a controlled setting; in disparate periods, it

dawns on a floor of wood chips, under a set of Boat Basin playground equipment on the 12th

birthday of a companion.

The summer of 2016, thought by the innumerable to be yet unsurpassed by measure of

eventfulness, revelation, and political peace, was undisputedly one of vim and vigor, and most

assuredly the last I’ve done anything as daft and feebleminded as what I did on that June 21st, a

Tuesday afternoon as lucid in my memory as the image of the keys I type on at this very

moment.

Preparations had been made weeks in advance for this special occasion, privately ever

since my own 12th birthday, where I was gifted the right to harry every one of my younger

friends and subsequently an attempt at appeasement by my friend; we’ll call her Jacqueline (after

the beloved Mrs. Kennedy). The attempt was planning, and after 75 days of it, the time for

execution had come. She, her mother, and another friend of ours (she’ll be called Edith) picked

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me up from my house. We went to Uncle Bill’s, spent a few hours aimlessly completing

miscellaneous activities, then arrived at the scene of the crime.

For the record, no legitimate crime was committed. Only the moral one of raining on

another's parade, on their birthday of all 366. It began about 30 minutes after our appearance, and Commented [1]: saying 366 because 2016 was a leap
year
ended it about 30 minutes too soon. All 3 of us were on the bridge, the highest point of all on the

play set. I, in my youthful foolishness and bad judgement, wished desperately to be dared to

jump from the great height, to prove someone wrong in their judgement of my abilities, to

outshine my peers in the self-absorbed and self-deceived mind of one about to meet their maker.

And meet my maker I did.

When no one else would dare me, I dared myself to make the mentally epic jump to the

ground from the bridge, about 10 feet down. And so I did it. There’s not much to tell of the two-

second occurence, other than that my thoughts anticipated failure as soon as I had reached the

point of no return. After the seconds turned to minutes in the time of wicked expectancy, I hit the

ground like a failed Spiderman and heard a crack. I couldn't feel much at that moment, so I tried

to get up. And I could not. Not only did I have to deal with a pain following until August, I had

at the time to deal with the shame of admitting not only my failure in analysis, but also that I'd

need assistance in getting back up.

It took an hour to return to my house, recount to my mother my failure, and bid adieu to

my dearest friends, undoubtedly, as I was, let down to a substantial degree at my ineptitude. It

took over a month to heal. And it took just under 2 years to garner zeal for knowledge of

American history, politics, and pop culture and figures like the Kennedy family to the point of

knowing by heart before this assignment the maxim I introduced this paper with: “There are risks

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and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction,” and

its meaning, both in original context and personal.

As demonstrated by the story I’ve spun, my stubbornness, its effect on the “program of

action” I made, most definitely came with risks and costs attached. But, as I and anyone as close

to me as Jacqueline and Edith know, had I not committed such an impolitic atrocity as I did that

fateful day, had I reveled in comfortable inaction as opposed to perpetuating my folly, the

harvest I’d have reaped by now would be colossally more calamitous.