Life Is Risky and Ultimately Fatal

I can be good at strategizing. I can also be somewhat anxious. Put those two together, and what do you get? A mindset where I’m trying to anticipate and plan for every possible risk in advance. (Believe me, that’s no way to live!)

When I notice myself doing this, I try to shift to a mindset where I trust myself to respond spontaneously and intuitively to any situation that might come up. (Yes, sometimes, the appropriate response to life is to sit down and do some planning—but I tend to err on the side of over-worrying and over-planning.)

I find it helpful to remind myself that life is risky and ultimately fatal. The ultimate risk is not that I will get killed, feel embarrassed, feel ashamed, or any of that. The ultimate risk is that when my life comes to an end—as it inevitably will—it will have been meaningless. The only way around that risk is to take risks—especially, to take the risk of standing up, standing out, and doing my best to offer life what’s mine to offer.

Photo Graveyard (by Ruben Holthuijsen) is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.