Risking Growth

Recently, I took a forward stroke toward achieving something that is not only important for me, but concerns the lives of many others, as well. Involved in this chapter of my story, is a place that I never desired to go. Unchartered, untraveled territory which will require tenacity, determination, and unadulterated chutzpah, span the distance ahead of me; but I have no choice. I have done all that I could in order to sail the smoothest route, but when the shark continued nipping wildly at my toes, I had to make the decision to do more than just quietly removing my toes from the water. I had to calculate the risks involved in diving into the water along with the shark.

Risk, in itself, often carries with it a negative connotation. Risk can leave us feeling exposed. It causes us to face the unknown. It leaves us open to the elements. By avoiding risk, we might feel as if we can also avoid things like rejection, guilt, being wrong, conflict and anger, but the truth is that by avoiding risk, we also avoid growth. And to me, there could be nothing worse than leading a life that is stagnant. Without taking risks, there is nothing to be gained. We must take risks because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing at all. To gain nothing. To go nowhere. Without taking risks, how will we ever understand our own capacity for strength?

I am standing on the precipice of a decision that I, along with Mark and our Angel Daughters, have made in lieu of drowning in a sea of regrets. It is a place that not many have stood upon before us, and the view is a bit uncertain from here. But one thing is for sure. The risk is not what will eat me alive. I feel safe in my uncertainty because it would be the inaction, not the action of taking the risk, which would leave me open to the whim of this shark, and that is something which would certainly pull me under.

Take a risk, love. Look into the face of whatever shark is nipping at your toes, and make the decision to swim for your life.