So much freedom, so much choice, so many opportunities to do something amazing.

And yet, it is our natural instinct to find a place to hold us, a spot where we are safe from the obligation/opportunity to choose. Because if we choose, then we are responsible, and we have to take risks, and risks are scary, because they make us vulnerable.

But in our efforts to avoid risk we give up our freedoms, and although there is comfort in this, life, and all the beauty that lies beyond the realms of comfort go undiscovered. Which isn’t that bad until you are standing in the middle of the night market in Thailand with your wife and two small children, absorbing the full spectrum of risk, and you realize, this is living!

Sometimes instincts work in our favor, like choosing not to rent a 4 person tuk tuk as our primary mode of transportation for the week, but they can also hold us back, like spending another decade working in a dead-end job. How do we know when to follow our instincts and when to not?

The answer is – we don’t, it is a leap of faith. The good news is the outcome is almost always a product of our outlook and our perspective which will only widen if we let it, This means allowing ourselves the opportunity to take risks and of course, fail. But then again, what is the alternative?

 

Jump into the Gap

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived" - Henry David Thoreau

About Stephen

To teach our children the meaning of gratitude, to grow as a family through love, adventure, service community and of course travel.

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