Tag Archives: take responsibility

Leaving safety

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Taking a risk is what keeps us alive. Leaping – leaving behind the familiar – may not come natural to us. But a wise guy I know told me that he never met anyone who regretted making life-changing decisions such as moving from one job to another, one career to another, when it was only fear which kept them where they were.

I am fascinated by the process of decision-making in such situations. What keeps someone in an unsatisfying situation for years? The fear of making a mistake? The fear of the unknown? The fear that faraway hills are green and they will be just as dissatisfied elsewhere? It can be easier to stay and complain than to take the leap of faith in oneself, take responsibility for one’s own life and head into the unknown. It can be hard to believe that security is only real when it relies on oneself. Giving up the security of a role, income, etc. often leads to excitement, adventure, an expansion of consciousness and a life better lived.

‘Time, gentlemen, time’  as they may cry in pubs when it is time to clear the premises. Knowing the time to go, to move on, to leap into the dark.

Having lept, of course, things will not necessarily fall into place right away. You have left behind one synthesis for another – but the other may still be barely born. Financially you may take a hit – after all isn’t it that which so often keeps us in dissatisfying situations to begin with. But remember your resolution: if you only had a short time to live, you wouldn’t have spent it doing what you were doing. So do now what you want to do, see, explore, be, achieve before you die. Today is the day for that.

You have stepped up to the plate. You have risked failure. Whether you succeed or not doesn’t matter in the end. What matters is that you are alive. You have leapt. You have trusted yourself and the universe.

Creation can be a messy thing. Form takes a while to take shape. The world wasn’t built in a day. But create. Create something true and beautiful and worthwhile and fun. Dance. Express. Sing. Write. Focus on what you want. We’ll be pushing up daisies sooner than we think. Laugh. Detach. Be thankful.

Step up to the plate

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Living today as if it might be your last needs to move beyond a cliché. Let us stop suspending what we want to do. There is no tomorrow! This is the day to live your life to the full. It’s May 2010. It seems like a blink of the eye since the turn of the century and here we are a decade into it already. How many years must we waste before we wake up to the transience of life?

Since resigning from a job recently, I have been doing what I’ve wanted to do for ages: writing for a living. It’s what I have done for the past 15 years, but I got sidetracked into a  gig that substantially reduced my writing time. Now, I’m finally completing a book I’ve been writing, on and off, for the past 20 years!

As I wrote in these pages before, realising that my dad had a stroke and a heart attack at my present age has served to focus my attention. Time and mortality have ever been the two things that nudge me to action. If you’re not doing today what you want to be doing, what the blazes are you waiting for?

The fear of daring to believe in yourself can keep us from living the life that’s there for us. Step up to the plate! Accept the personal challenge you face. Take responsibility. Go do what you were born to do! Could you do it? Yes. Would you do it? Yes. When would you do it? Today!