Risks
“You may avoid suffering and sorrow if you don’t risk, but you simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live. The greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing and has nothing. Only a person who risks is free.” – Bob Proctor
I love the line that only the person who risks is free. This is because the person who risks nothing, does so because he is bound by fears. As long as you allow your fears to keep you from taking risks you are empty handed, you have nothing. Your life remains bound by the limits that you have allowed to be placed upon it. You don’t need to remain caught up in a ceaseless cycle of futility. You can break free.
Fears are false beliefs, misinterpretations that our mind creates in order to keep us “safe”, free from getting hurt. Your “personal story” is what stops you from breaking free of the fears. You need to release this story in order to step out beyond your fears and take the risks that life needs you to take, in order to grow and find the things that we are seeking from life.
How do we release the story? Joseph Campbell says “Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.” This is true because whatever has happened to us in life, changed us in some way that can be used in a positive way. Until we can find that place of joy, the experience or story that we tell ourselves is actually harming us. We need to release that version of the story to move forward in our journey.
We need to learn, feel, change, grow, love and learn from that experience and let the joy burn out the pain, and leave us with the happiness that is our birthright. My “stories” viewed through the lens of time and experience have created who I am. I celebrate them and myself, because of those experiences, I am free to take the risks of creating a better world for myself and others. And that is what makes me happy!
