How Do We Make Our Lives a Daring Adventure?

By Douglas D. Germann, Sr.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." - Helen Keller.

Awe. That's what I feel when I read this statement. To think of the situation faced by the woman who wrote it and to know that she made her life a daring adventure humbles me.

What an ideal to live up to! How can we ever do it? May we think about this together for a few moments?

. The starting place for me is to be true to myself. If we are who we really are, we can say no to the roles others try to place on us, and the things which pull us in every direction every day. The new opportunities to advertise our business or to go into new businesses or to invest in relationships that don't seem to fit.

We suddenly know what is not true, and we can turn away from that. More importantly, we can now give full energy to our real selves, and with abandon, knowing we cannot be hurt when we pursue the truth--our truth.

In short, what is it that you are here to do? What pulls you over and over again and won't let you go? What tasks must you do or you will not have made your own music on this planet? You know. Deep down you know.

. Knowing our truth, we can decide the role in our lives of the mundane: earning a living, tending the house and yard, doing our civic duty. What per centage of your time should be spent on maintaining things, and what per centage on being your real self? 50/50? 20/80? 10/90?

This thought can be immensely freeing. My guess is that whatever number we assign the mundane is probably too high and can be cut by 50% without great harm.

Do it! Whatever we think to do, do without delay.

It was hard to write that sentence without adjectives--I wanted to give myself some outs, like "reasonable" or "after appropriate study." We study and plan things to death. A recent article said that business plans are a waste of time for most businesses. One can be too reasonable.

If we want to move this life and this planet along, we need to start moving. Planning is not doing. The doing will create its own momentum and new ideas and new plans we could never have forecast.

. Try it! We cannot know the results of whatever we do, much as we like to think our studies give us this knowledge.

The future is not controllable. (Isn't this fear what drives us to study it to death?)

So experiment! Give something a test run. If it doesn't work, or if it does, chances are you had less invested than you would have in an exhaustive study, and you are way ahead in elapsed time. Learn by experimenting.

. This all said, I still hesitate to jump off the cliff into the fog. All the other cliffs on this path have been in the fog, and all have ended up being narrow, safe transitions.

Now I know I am on the path I need to follow, and I fear less, but I still fear.

How to overcome it? Perhaps to realize what my fear really is. It is really the fear of death. All fears are this same fear at base. If this doesn't work, I will fail, and go bankrupt and my dependents and I will never find meaningful work again and I will be disgraced and not be able to feed my dependents and myself, and we will starve and die. All fears walk down various paths to end up at the same chasm. Yet for most situations there is a clear and level path around, even though we cannot see it from the top of the winding path.

This fear of death is a charlatan. No one ever died of a failed business.

Have you ever been with someone after they have died? I have not actually been with someone when they have died, but I have been there minutes later. It is fair to say sometimes, more often than we tell ourselves, healing comes with death. Healing has a much larger sense than having a body without limps or pains. Death can be a new beginning. And so too financial or professional "deaths."

. Does this mean give up your present career? Maybe not. Does it mean quit your job and move to a two room shack in the mountains? Probably not. There are no black and white answers.

I think all roads, no matter where they go, all eventually wind up good for those who are constantly looking for the good. No road is forever. No road is bad. There is hope. You are a good person and will make good choices all along. Trust yourself. There is hope.

When I was trying to get my new calling (carrying this message) off the ground, I spent 8 or 9 years planning it. But when I started to talk to people about their needs, it mobilized me, made my plans real. I now had some real faces to put to the help I could bring people. It gave my outlines and articles life. When I prepared a letter and actually dared send it out to several dozen people, things happened! People actually signed up! The day after the mail went out, even! Now I can dare even more.

Can I guarantee this will all work, and that you won't get hurt? Of course not. I am still working up the courage to be more daring myself.

But I can tell you this: Daring in the pursuit of your personal truth sets you free. You turn out to be more than you are. You find out you always were. Most people say "I wish I had done it sooner." Don't cheat yourself and the rest of us: Be your true self.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." Or as my high school chemistry teacher Jack Goodman said, "You can flame out or rust out: It's all a process of oxidation." Choose. Live.

By Douglas D. Germann, Sr. (If you enjoyed reading this article please let the author know.)

E-mail Doug@FootprintsintheWind.com

www.FootprintsInTheWind.com

© Copyright 2002, Learning Works, Incorporated. Reprinted with permission.