The Risk You Aren't Taking
Any enterprise requires risk. Risk causes fear because, by definition, it means we're doing something that costs us something. The hope is that it doesn't cost us our life — but that kind of fear can take root sometimes. We all carry some level of primitive fear — the fight-or-flight mechanisms that flood the brain with cortisol and wreak havoc on the body. We calculate, we plot, and after we've done our homework, we take calculated risks that produce a certain level of fear. If there's no fear, we're not taking risks — and since good things don't come easy, if we're not taking risks, there's a good chance we're not contributing at the level we're truly capable of. We don't grow in the comfort zone. We grow when we take risks, when we learn by failing and falling, and when we're resilient enough to get back up and try again.
Many people, the first time they're punched in the face and knocked down, decide that doesn't feel good — so they take the simpler roads, the easier paths, in an attempt to avoid future pain. But this isn't a full life. This isn't where innovation and progress reside. This isn't where faith resides. So how do we risk again?
We must cultivate courage.
Courage is what we do when we're faced with fear and choose to push forward anyway. Courage is doing the things that scare us.
The Bible alone contains several hundred exhortations to "fear not" — this is an old human struggle. But it is precisely here that courage, faith, and progress are enacted. Good things don't happen when we play it safe, take no risks, or stay comfortable.
We all desire a better world. Each of us, as kids, saw a big world, felt big desires, and dreamed of one day making our mark. But we have let fear beat us down to the point that we're no longer willing to live fully — and that is slowly killing our faith, our joy, and the very essence of our will to live. Who, when asked as a child what they dreamed of, responded with something like, "I want to play it safe, save for retirement, and live out my final years in a quasi-drunken stupor among people I don't really like"? No one dreamed that. Yet we have let fear drown out our ability to dream — and even to feel excitement.
Instead of using our God-given abilities to chart a course toward our passions and address real problems in the world, we settle for stability, safety, and comfort. But in doing so, have we simply traded one fear for another? A passion-less, risk-less life doesn't bring us to our full potential — it leaves so many possibilities untried. It's a kind of death while still alive. Not dead, but not truly living either.
We must cultivate the courage to awaken our senses and perspective to what we were made for. Each of us carries God-given desires and passions that were never meant to be safe, simple, or without struggle. It's in the struggle that faith is cultivated. It's in the pain that we grow stronger. It's in the fight that we feel most alive — not merely surviving, but discovering what it means to truly thrive.
What passions have you left behind? If the younger you could see who you are today, what would they say? What are you afraid of? Where might you be invited to practice more courage?
If this resonates with you and you'd like to talk, reach out — I'd love to start a conversation.
