My mom (who is living with us at the moment) has been a Rotary Club member since 1987. So we now get “Rotarian” magazine delivered to the house on a regular basis. Normally, I don’t pay much attention. But the cover story of the January issue was titled “Wake Up and Live Your Dreams!” Seemed apropos. I opened it up to find an article titled: “The Rewards of Risk: What’s the Greatest Threat to the Pursuit of Happiness? Doing Nothing.”
So of course, I had to read it. The intro, written by a a travel writer named Frank Bures, talked about how disproportionate many of our fears are, and how our fears can be stifling, or even paralyzing.
“We live in the world our great-grandparents dreamed of,” he wrote, “yet we seem incapable of enjoying it, unable to let go of those handrails, ever more afraid of the unknown.” He also noted that some of the things that exhilarate us are exhilarating not despite the risk involved, but because of it. So, Bures concluded, “not taking risks along the way is the biggest risk of all.”
I have somewhat mixed feelings about that. I completely agree that to live ruled by fear is not to live. And there are certainly those who are motivated and rewarded by the very risks (and attendant adrenaline rush) that come with experiences like skydiving, flying, mountain climbing, being a war correspondent and the like.
There are others, of course, who accept the risks of adventure only because they want a particular goal or experience badly enough to take the risks as part of a trade off; who want to know, for example, the feeling of being on top of a glacier-covered mountain, or to understand first-hand how post-Genocide Rwandan women put their lives back together. They decide to take on the risks involved in those adventures but don’t necessarily get any sense of exhilaration out of the risk. For them, the risk is more like the price exacted for something greater in reward.
But regardless of how different people view the risks inherent in the pursuit of passions, dreams, or adventure, the point is still well taken: life is short, and to shrink back in fear from pursuing the joys or dreams or experiences that offer fulfillment, meaning, or make you feel alive is an awful waste.
On the other hand, it’s not always fear that leads someone to pause or choose another path than one most fulfilling to themselves. And sometimes that point gets lost in our enthusiasm for self-fulfillment and life lived to the fullest. [click to continue…]
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