Why Taking Risks Is Worth It

Everything is a risk. It’s a risk to stay where we are in our life just as much as it’s a risk to step into unfamiliar territory. The question is not, “Which decision is a risk and which isn’t?”

The question is, “Which decision reaps the highest reward?”

This is the principle of calculated risks, which governs our lives; take a step into the unknown and life will reward you for your courage. Yes, it may be scary, but fear is an innate part of the human experience. It can become the chain and ball that locks us in the ordinary, or the wind that blows us into the extraordinary. We choose how to use it. The choice is always ours.

The paradox of the preceding is that the choices most of us make aren’t for ourselves. Instead they are to please others and fit in, so that we may live the path of least resistance, which is of lesser reward.

If we do choose to step outside of the norms, it’s not “us” to have everything little thing planned out, to know exactly how everything will work out. All we have to know is that it will work out perfectly.

When we can put our trust in life like this, we open ourselves to the miracles that are everywhere. Most of us just never experience them because we are so closed in our view, there is so much mental and physical tension in our life that there’s no open space for life to flow through us. This, in essence, is when we are not living true to ourselves.

There is no twelve step process to knowing if we are living true to ourselves or not. It’s simple. When we ask ourselves this question and we are not moving toward it, then we most likely aren’t living our most authentic path: “What would have to happen one year from now in order to look back and say it was the most fulfilling and successful year to date?”

It’s easy to live for other people, and much more of a challenge to live for ourselves. True strength isn’t the ability to bench press 400 pounds; it’s to be ourselves in a world that’s trying its best to make us something else.