Khi nào nên 'lướt ván trên không'?

Dear Dan,

For my birthday, my boyfriend (bạn trai) gave me a rather expensive (đắt đỏ) coupon for tandem sky diving (lướt ván trên không). I could have used the coupon that weekend, when the sky diving season ended, but I chose instead to wait a few months for the new season to begin. My thought was that I'd be braver (can đảm hơn) in the future and somehow mentally prepare myself. But can someone really prepare for something like this?

—Kinga

When we think about experiences, we need to think about three types of time: the time before the experience, the time of the experience and the time after the experience. The time beforehand can be filled with anticipation (phập phồng, thấp thỏm) or dread (kinh sợ, kinh hãi); the time of the experience itself can be filled with joy (vui sướng) or misery (đau khổ); and the time afterward can be filled with happy or miserable memories. (The shortest of these three types of time, interestingly, is almost always the time of the experience itself.)

So what should you do? In your case, the time before your sky diving experience will certainly not be cheerful. The time of the experience will also probably not be pure joy. At a minimum, you're going to ask why you are doing this to yourself. But the time after the experience is likely to be wonderful (assuming that you get out of this alive), and you will get to bask in the way you conquered your fears (chinh phục nỗi sợ) and relive the view of Earth from above.

So your best strategy was to make the time before the experience as short as possible. It is too late now, but you should have just gone sky diving the moment you got the coupon, which also would have signaled (ra tín hiệu) to your boyfriend how much you appreciated the gift.

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