No Guarantees

No Guarantees

To Risk is to Live

I used to believe that knowing the outcomes of my actions or inactions was a real positive. Being able to predict what will happen next eliminates risk and gives us an advantage when it comes to making decisions. Knowing, in advance, the results of our decisions is a good thing; or so I thought. Now I’m discovering that just the opposite is a good thing too. How I came to this change of heart was by observing patterns in life. The time we wake, the initial built in habits of starting a day and the way we brush our teeth and a million other things we do are pretty much the same every day; and we wonder where life’s excitement has gone.

 

The reason we get so comfortable and predictable is we don’t like change and our routine serves us well. We’ve trained our brains to instinctively go through the motions of living and pull us along for the ride. As I get older and hopefully wiser, I understand that this man-made insulation keeps us safe. However, being safe means being unafraid and to be unafraid means we’ve eliminated fear from our daily diet. No fear in this context does not mean fearless; it means fearful. The difference between the two feelings is about as pronounced as living life vs. showing up for it.

 

To risk is to live. When we put ourselves on the line, not knowing what will happen, we invite emotions that bring us alive. This is the state of happiness we were created to enjoy. I’m not suggesting we all go out and start bungee jumping and taking chances. I’m suggesting we mix up the day. Start with the premise that something great will happen to us and then spend the rest of the day looking for it. There are no guarantees on what we might discover, but rest assured we will be alive and ready for the moment when it does. These new “magic” moments come to us through the courtesy of our own humaneness. We are designed to create and have the DNA to thrive, not just survive. It’s up to us. When we ask ourselves the question of just how much life do we want to feel, the right answer is all of it.

 

The Final Thought: “If you knew you would not fail, what would you do?” How much love we need and how much we’d be willing to share is an equation that’s always in flux and depends solely on our own heart’s yearning. Take the step that your heart is begging you to take and let the fun begin.