“If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” — Ray Bradbury
I’m not condoning love affairs, especially if you are married. But everything else that Ray Bradbury says here reminds us that life is full of risks and opportunities. Although many of us prefer not to have to take more risks than necessary, we must take some risks if we don’t want to simply stagnant and stop growing.
I grew up in a family where taking risks didn’t go so well. Both my parents started and failed with their business ventures. My mother, however, finally got the knack of how to be a successful businesswoman. She went from being a bookkeeper in her home, to doing taxes in a rented office, to finally becoming an Enrolled Agent. She’d taken her risks, one determined step at a time, and ended up creating a profitable business; my father was happy to support her work and was a traveling notary public. Most of their risks were calculated, yet one can never know precisely how a venture might go.
I’ve taken my share of risks: I became an independent business writing consultant, and worked at that career for 10 years, then was able to sell it. Then I went back to school for a master’s degree and became an organizational development consultant, focused on communications and conflict (resolving it, not causing it!) In both careers, I had my husband as back-up, so they weren’t exactly like jumping off a cliff financially. But I made plenty of jumps intellectually and emotionally: I didn’t want to fail.
But those worries were my cliffs, my minefields, and I had to learn to press on through my mental roadblocks. If I lost a bid for a project, there’d be another; the world wouldn’t come to an end. If work slowed down, I had to market even harder, and making sales calls was so unpleasant for me. But I had a cause, a purpose in my work, and when people turned me down, I realized (eventually) that it usually wasn’t personal. I jumped off a lot of emotional cliffs, but I always survived and learned a lot about effective sales, but I also learned a tremendous amount about myself. I learned to “build my wings on the way down.”
I am so determined that my life be about growing and learning. It’s almost an obsession, addiction with me. There is so much to learn and at my age, and so little time.
Who knows when my next cliff will appear?
What were the cliffs in your life?
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