On the last day of my Brazil trip, I went hang gliding off of a cliff in one of Rio’s rain forests (or maybe the only one). I sailed over the forest, then over houses, then over the water, and finally landed on the beach. It was a fairly short trip (maybe 5 minutes at most), but it was definitely worth it.

I’m terrified of heights and got a little freaked out when I looked at the pad from which we were supposed to run right off of—it was tilted down as if to hint at the object from which I would be falling and smashing into; aka the Earth. I heard the instructor say, however, to look at the horizon when running off… to not even look at the pad, and God forbid to look down. Who knows what paralysis might hit and the only real danger when hang gliding is to not get a good running start into the wind.

So that’s what saved me… looking into the horizon—a trick I’m familiar with from old cross-country running days. If you look at something far off everything feels safer, easier, closer. And, after looking at the horizon and running off the platform, the rest of the ride was fear-free: peaceful, beautiful, and exciting.

I never thought I’d consider sky diving, but seeing now that my fear of heights isn’t really triggered by hang gliding (the activity) so much as hang gliding (the jumping off), I think there’s a chance that sky diving wouldn’t make me die of a heart attack either.