It's Your Life

 

The Daring Adventure

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.”

Helen Keller

          I have a few friends who knew as children what they wanted to be when they grew up —my ex-husband comes to mind. He wanted to be a doctor from his earliest years and never even thought of anything else. My friend, Renae, grew up on a farm in a tiny rural community in Nebraska. At an early age, she began blessing and baptizing the barn cats and other farm animals and went on to become a Doctor of Divinity.

But most of us don’t have that foresight—we try things on for size and keep trying this and that until we land on something that sticks. Some of us stick when we shouldn’t because we have landed on something that pays the bills and keeps our family fed. I have friends who stay in jobs they hate for decades and by the time they leave they are worn out and drained of any zest for life—but they have a pension plan!

          Some of us have a passion that we recognize when we’re young, but if authority figures, especially our parents, tell us we can’t do it, or we shouldn’t do it, we tend to drop back and punt. We do the expedient thing that others tell us we’re suited for. I’m not saying that’s a waste of time, because all work is honorable and any job we have provides an opportunity to learn new skills and to figure out how to navigate life. For instance, in having work we don’t enjoy, or that we are simply not good at, we learn what we don’t want to do, and that’s valuable. My very first paid job was as a receptionist in an insurance office when I was still in high school. I lasted about two weeks—multitasking is not my strong suit. But I gained a new respect for people who are good at it. It’s kind of like juggling well enough to keep all the balls in the air all the time. Which is to say, exhausting.

          I think Helen Keller hit on an important point in the quote above. Life can be a daring adventure—which requires a certain fearlessness that some of us don’t have. But if you do have it, by all means, go for it. I think of people like Jane Goodall. How did a young girl from England even imagine going to live in an African jungle to study the great apes? Or how did a black kid from Kentucky transform himself into the legendary Muhammad Ali? Passion is a big deal! Passion drives you towards excellence. If you have passion for something—a calling, in other words—listen to poet Mary Oliver’s advice:

“…when you hear the unmistakable pounding…when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and streaming—then row, row for your life toward it.” (“West Wind #2”) 

    There’s nothing quite like it—trust me.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane