"You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore"
Wow these words can't be ringing more true. I discovered something today....I am not as adventurous as I once thought I was. I take risks here and there BUT the difference is the risks that I take. I take calculated risks, you know the ones that really can't even be considered much of risk because I have thought out so much what will happen after this "risk".
There are many out there who are great risk takers. I have heard one common theme from all of the people who have changed the world, done something amazing, and made an impact on those around them. They take the risk that it takes to get there. They make the CHOICE to go when its dark and unknown. They ignore the voices in their head and possibly the people that tell them to stay safe, that you will never make it, and that you are only going to mess things up again. I am not sure if it is literally that few seconds of courage you need when making the big choice or if it's an instinctive ability to ignore all you know and leave the box. Is the wonder that some people posses that nags at their brain daily (like an itch you can't scratch) to try this new thing?? Maybe it's all of these things.
I look at us as if we are all on an island. We are all here and we all know this place is great. Just as anywhere else it has its ups and downs but we are getting by just fine. There is no real reason to do anything else. We have everything we need right here. Then one day you have a thought cross your mind if there is something else out there. Nobody knows and everyone says why bother because you are OK here. You think to yourself, 'yeah you are right' and push the thought to the bottom of the list of things....for now.
Then few weeks later, here it is again. For months and months the thought comes in your mind and it gets harder each time to push it out. The wonder, the possibilities, the thought of the unknown, and the belief in something better that you can't see is out there continue to fill your mind until one day you decide that you don't even want to be on this island anymore. You now will do whatever it takes to go and see what lies past the shores and just out of your sights. When you tell the others most do not understand for they have not spent their last months contemplating all of the possibilities out there. They warn you of the dangers and remind you of the unknown that you will soon be facing. For many, this is the point in which the thought is pushed down again and you decide they are probably right and it is safer here in the place you know.
Maybe a few more attempts and still nothing will happen and then you will spend the rest of your life fine. There was nothing wrong here remember, but you will never know what may have happened if you only had the courage to try. This will nag at you forever. Then, there is the one day when you are able to possess a few moments of strength and courage and you take that moment and get your boat. You head out into the direction of your dream. You don't tell many this time for fear that they will only want you stay. They don't want to harm you but they just don't get it yet. We are never all in this place of sailing away at the same time. We are all on our own journeys but just coexisting next to each other on this island. So there you are looking back at the island that you knew and loved for all this time. You are thankful for its lessons and for your time there but you know with certainty now that out there in the other direction, the one you can't see, there IS something. Its waiting for you to go and see it. The mere thought of this is enough to almost make you turn around. As you get further away from the shore and the island begins to shrink behind you thoughts fill your mind. The words of your loved ones telling you that this is crazy, the doubt begins to fill your brain, and the unknown quickly turns on you like a scary monster in the dark. You question it and now begin to FEAR the one thing that has filled every waking moment of your thoughts for months. It now begins to grow dark, so dark now that your beautiful vision of what this was going to be is now blanketed with unknown. It is then, and only then, that you get to make your choice....you can go back to what you know and the life you had OR you can continue on in the dark knowing that very shortly the sun will rise and your dreams will soon become your reality. So you choose...............
