Sunday Newscape Magazine

"These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger." Ralph Waldo Emerson

If not for courage we would not move. We would closet ourselves in our homes and watch through the window while other people succeed and fail and have a life. Sadly, many do just that. With doors dead-bolted and answering machines screening. Sequestered and safe. Or so it seems.

It does look like a dangerous world out there. Every night it peeps in at us through our 36" screen on the world - just to make sure the anxiety injected the night before is still racing through our bloodstreams. War, riots, murder, theft, abduction, abuse - coming at us through invisible airwaves and smudged print. Reason enough to keep to ourselves. Proof that to trust anyone is to risk everything.

The more we fear, the more reason we find to fear. And our homes become our premature coffins.

But, the human spirit doesn't shrink easily. It longs to run through grassy fields and jump mountain streams. It wants to fly and engage and risk - yes, risk. Even the timid heart yearns for adventure. Words like daring and bravery and fearlessness - boldness and valor - these words sizzle on our tongues and lure us like nectar. They speak of freedom and choice - of life itself.

What use to achieve longer life-spans, but have less life? We can't play it safe because we have no idea what's coming. I was in the middle of the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. Within seconds it was clear that this wasn't a fleeting tremor. The rumble became a sway and the ground became jelly. I was on the second floor of Macy's department store in Corte Madera - just north of the Golden Gate bridge. Corte Madera is build on landfill. No bedrock foundation. The first thing that came to mind was to get under a doorway. As if the two-by-four framework would hold up the ceiling! Then I realized, even if the doorway shielded me from falling debris, it wouldn't keep the second-story floor on which I stood from falling to the first. So rather than cower, I bolted. Was this bravery? Was it just a natural instinct to live? Is there a difference?

We do have a natural instinct to live. Physically it's buried in the brain's amygdala - the home of our fight-or-flight responses. But, it's also embedded in our souls. To reach for our dreams with every last ounce of passion. To know we had truly lived before we die.

No, there's no guarantee that to try is to succeed. But, so what? It's not the success that draws us, it's the attempt. That's what gets us - the chance to see if we can. It's not the thing that gets our blood pumping, it's what it requires of us - who we can become.

We're not here to play it safe - safe isn't this planet's proposition. An unknown author said, “Life is not a journey to the grave, with the intention of arriving safely, in one pretty and well-preserved piece, but to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out..." Flowers of the field dare to bloom each day - are we meant for less? Fledglings leap from their nests for the very first time each day - are we less capable than a bird?

Stephen Covey preaches to "begin with the end in mind." At the end of this life what memories do you want to have? What experiences? Do you want to regret not having more time or not having the time you had? Choose today. The heroes and champions of this world are simple human beings, like you and me. But, they've learned one thing - fear is not a stop sign. They feel fear too - ask them. But, they do anyway. They let fear be a counsel not a warden. The difference between the brave and the timid is a decision we can all make. Will we make it in time?

(c) Karen Wright - http://wrightminded.com