I was thinking this morning about risks — about the chances we take … or don’t take. Not so much risks like whether to shoot for that Xtreme skateboard move or play it safe. But the big, potentially life-changing risks.<\/p>\n
Oh, sure, the skateboard move or the jump out of the plane or whatever can also be life-changing. It could squish your ribcage or your pelvis, not to mention your brain. Or it could tell you you have more courage than you knew, courage you could use for good in the rest of your life. But I’m thinking more of the risks where you realize at the time, “If I do this thing, my life will be on a different path.”<\/p>\n
So today’s Friday Freedom Question asks What was the biggest risk that you didn’t<\/i> take (but wish you had) and what was the biggest risk you did<\/i> take that altered your life?<\/b><\/p>\n
For me, the biggest risk I didn’t take (and now regret) was that I didn’t drop out of high school and leave home at the earliest opportunity. Sure, it could have ended up as a dead end or with the humiliation of crawling home to “I told you sos.” But looking back, I think it would have shown me I was actually a more courageous and visionary person. It might — who knows? — have led me to opportunities I’d have been confident enough to explore, once I knew I could survive beyond family and It’s harder to pin down the biggest risk I did<\/i> take because the things outside observers told me seemed risky to them never seemed risky to me: leaving a place I was secure and moving across the country to a place where I knew nobody and had no connections — because that place called<\/i> to me; or quitting corporate communications to be a freedom writer. These seemed less like risky choices than inevitabilities to me (at least once I’d reached the decision-making moment). So it’s hard to say.<\/p>\n But what about you? What was the big risk you turned away from and now regret? What was the big risk you took and what were its results?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was thinking this morning about risks — about the chances we take … or don’t take. Not so much risks like whether to shoot for that Xtreme skateboard move or play it safe. But the big, potentially life-changing risks. Oh, sure, the skateboard move or the jump out of the plane or whatever can also be life-changing. It could squish your ribcage or your pelvis, not to mention your brain. Or it could tell you you have more courage than you knew, courage you could use for good in the rest of your life. But I’m thinking more of…<\/p>\nprison<\/del> school. <\/p>\n