Pull the Trigger
I come from a traditional Nebraskan family. We love college football (Geaux Big Red!), a light beer on the porch, and enjoying a nice steak at the dinner table. My dad and his friends are all big hunters. I’m a pretty good shot (as proven at our annual 4th of July clay pigeon shotgun festival), but I never came home with a set of antlers or feathers to mount from my few ventures out.
The mornings are too early, the outdoors too peaceful and uneventful, and I struggle to just pull the damn trigger.
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Soon after passing hunters’ safety, my dad took my cousin Cody and I turkey hunting. Like his dad, Cody has always been a “good-spirited” teaser, far smarter than he likes to let on, and incredibly competitive. (He loves to rub in the fact that he was the first person to earn a Masters degree in the family, even though we both know it was a fake teaching degree—that I helped him achieve.)
We didn’t see much action the whole day outside a few squirrel and bunnies. I only fought sleeping the morning away because I couldn’t give Cody any added ammunition for teasing. As we were heading back to the car empty-handed, a group of turkeys crossed our paths. I took out my 12-gauge shotgun, looked down the barrel at the turkeys primed for the dinner table… and froze. I could hear my dad through the fog whispering intensely “shoot them, Michael! Come on!” I closed my eyes and heard a giant BANG.
And then another BANG as Cody made up for his first round of lackluster shooting. My shotgun remained fully loaded, and Cody came away with his first turkey and fodder for my humiliation.
I didn’t go hunting again after that. I had “failed,” simply because I was afraid to take the chance.I don’t know what I thought would happen… My dad is a pretty wonderful guy, but maybe he’d be so disappointed that he’d leave me to fend for myself and plead with his in-laws to adopt Cody instead. And even though I have demonstrated many other successes as a marksman since, that day still haunts me.
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It’s pretty easy to point to other instances of hesitancy and freezing in my life—and they often have resulted in the outcome I initially feared. A tense, weak breath before a high note that inevitably causes a pubescent-sounding “SPLEE-AHH.” Pressing “send” on an email a day too late to find out the job position had already been filled in that time. Years of waiting to be “good enough” to make a leap-of-faith career move.
But when I take stock of the moments that I just pulled the metaphorical trigger, they have resulted in huge BANGS. Asking Gabi to marry me—BANG. Sticking my neck out for a justifiable pay raise—BANG. Quitting my teaching job-BANG. When I’ve taken care of business and trusted myself to put myself out there, it almost always works out—or, at the very least, points me in the correct direction moving forward.
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May we all aim true, trust our preparation, and take the familial bragging rights as our own—Pull the damn trigger.
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