Taking Risks is hard; settling is harder

As I turn 45, one of the hardest lessons I have learned is that taking risks is hard, but settling is even harder.

Living a life you settled for, choosing the short stick, and never taking much risk may feel comfortable and not require giving up much control, but squandering your potential is far worse.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned, and what I want to tell younger people, is to take risks and challenge yourself.

You don’t know how it will turn out, but I can tell you that settling for what seems easy and safe is a much harder pill to swallow 80% of the time.

Being filled with regrets because you never tried is much harder than knowing you tried and failed

The core issue

I am a firm believer that settling in one area of your life will affect every other area.

By settling professionally, I not only lost prime earning years and upward mobility, but I lost opportunities to meet mentors and peers, and that has limited my options to move forward with my life.

I have thought about what the core issue is with settling for my career and what I am really upset with myself about: The answer is squandered potential.

Aside from limiting my options and not being a smart financial choice, the core issue is that I squandered so much of my potential. I am way too smart to be doing what I am doing now, and that is what is killing me.

Fear of failure held me back in previous seasons. As I have walked through the hardest seasons of my life, I am more afraid of dying knowing I never took any risks and squandered my potential. I know I have the grit, resilience, and confidence to stand at the end of the day, even through hard times.

Goal for 45 – Relational Risk Taking

The risk I want to take at 45 is not about my career. It’s about relationships. I want to take more relational risks. I don’t want to settle for associations out of obligation, convenience, or proximity.

I am still shedding my religious conditioning, and I think an underrated factor affecting very religious people is isolation. Being insulated within church makes it easy to lose touch with reality, and it’s easier to control people.

I’ve listened to testimonies from others who have left charismania-type churches like the one I was part of, and they said they all lost their friends and social networks because there is literally no time to socialize with people outside of the church, since you’re so busy with church activities.

My goal for this year of life is to take relational risks. I am going to get back out in the world and meet weirdos again. I’m interested in people I authentically connect with, not just people I associate with out of obligation, convenience, and proximity.

Get out into the world

One big risk I will need to take is starting to go to events and partake in activities that I like, and I want to do more in-person events. I love my online book club and online writing class, but I would like to do more in-person activities.

I started attending movies, live music, and sporting events again as well. This is important because I want to be able to invite people into my life and invite them to come with me and do what I like to do

It’s better than nothing

Years ago, I went to an eating psychology retreat with author Geneen Roth, and she made us do an eating meditation where you sucked on a Hershey’s kiss until it melted and you ate it. You weren’t allowed to chew it because Hershey’s kisses are foods that people often binge on, and Geneen Roth wanted us to actually taste the Hershey’s kiss.

When it was time to ask for observations, one participant said: “It tasted artificial, but it’s better than nothing.”

“That’s exactly it!” Geneen Roth exclaimed. “You are settling for something that does not satisfy you, because you think something that tastes artificial is better than nothing.”