"Don't think. Just do !"

Recently I did a project with my 11th year English group and as they wanted to see a Jackie Chan movie, I chose "The Forbidden Kingdom", which came to the cinemas in 2008 and united the action stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li. The plot is a typical story of initiation: Jason, a Boston teenager, is thrown into a mythic world by a magic staff, where he has to fulfill a task and learns how to become a man.

One thing I did in class was take some quotes from this movie and discuss them with the students. The quote I want to talk about here is taken from the beginning of the relationship between Jason and the Drunken Scholar, Lu Yan, played by Jackie Chan. In a tea house they are attacked by the soldiers of the evil Jade Warlord and have to flee. At one point Jason is standing on the roof top, in front of him darkness, behind him the soldiers, but he hesitates. Lu Yan shouts: "Jump!", but Jason replies: "I don't think so." Lu Yan's order : "Don't think. Just do!"

Now Jason is torn between two evils: he can be killed by the soldiers or he can be seriously hurt or even killed by jumping down the roof. In the end he jumps, is caught by Lu Yan and they fall together, both surviving and making their escape.

I thought that life is sometimes like that. Like my first jump from the three-meter board in the local swimming-pool: it scared me to death, but the thought of all these people seeing me climb down again was even more scary, so I stopped thinking and jumped. My students gave another example: falling in love.It can give you happiness, but it can also cause you a broken heart. You can try to reflect and think about it for ages, trying to eliminate every risk, in the end you still have to "just do". Or remain lonely and wonder what you might have missed.

There definitely are situations in life when too much pondering means not going forward, when you have to stop thinking and jump. In the end it might be better than just standing there paralyzed and being killed by the soldiers. At least you have the chance to be caught and saved...

(Photo JC Group, 2007, www.jackiechan.com)