Are you more likely to take or avoid a risk?
I am attempting to be perfectly honest with this series. I am attempting to be perfectly honest with this series. I am attempting to be perfectly honest with this series.
I am comfortable with risk in certain settings and with certain people.
I am comfortable risking when the odds are in my favor and truly, no real harm will be done if I fail.
An example: A few weeks ago I attempted to end a friendship. I’ve been writing about this friendship here for approximately the last seven months. If you’ve been reading here a while, you may remember those posts, if not – after you are done with this essay you may find links to the other ones at the end.
I didn’t think a text break up would be brave nor would it be effective. I have tried this tactic before.
I met my friend and spoke to him at first using all my skills as a communicator, but we kept running around in circles. He continued to throw out fully furnished picnic blankets with bowls full of yesterday’s mistakes and last week’s thoughtless words salad and then, the ever growing tower of “ways other people have responded to me so you must becoming just like them afterall” sandwiches.
I kept asking, “Is there room in your life for our friendship?”
“Is there room in your life for our friendship?”
“Is there room in your life for our friendship?
The conversation ended without a firm resolution. I had told one of my friends about my quandary and had declared this would finally be the end.
It felt very risky to ask that question and if the answer had been, “No, there isn’t room in my life for our friendship,” it would have made the entire situation easier, less complex, less ongoingly risky. By the way, I don’t think “ongoingly” is a word, but you know what I mean.
Since then we have both practiced better communication. We have both been vulnerable. We have both walked in the footprints of the other to get a clean, clear perspective. We may have the same conversation in the future, which is something I warned him about nearly three years ago, “I get tired of having the same conversation over and over. If things don’t change, I get bored and I opt out of relationships.”
Yes, this was a big risk for me to take and the results have been helpful, but even if I had gotten the “No,” response to my question, the only person who would sustain pain and possibly some temporary feelings of destruction would be me. My children wouldn’t have been marred, my day-to-day life would be filled with more of what I wanted because I wouldn’t feel compelled to make space for our friendship. There are many reasons the risk would have brought a favorable resolution no matter what the outcome.
I am risky in taking random dares.
I am not risky if it involves my children or my home or my lifework.
Those all feel too close to my bones, too caustic in the long run if I were to risk and fail.
I’ve seen too many real-life fairy tales where the evil prince prevails, leaving the heroine flat faced on the ground… before she picks herself up and dusts herself off and carries on as a stronger version of herself. The thing is, I don’t ever want to drag my children down on the ground with me. What if they are too damaged to get back up, to dust themselves off, to carry on stronger.
What if one of them breaks irreparably?
This question appears so easy to answer, but it isn’t.
I’ll leave you with gratitude for reading as well as links to earlier chapters in my “Do you have space in your life for me?” story.
Offering the Gift of Grace, Even When it Seems Countercultural :
When I re-read these posts, I noticed they were all written from a writing prompt. It isn't and wasn't something I enjoyed experiencing or writing about, but I know it is a situation that comes up for many of us. I know being conscious about the choices we have are powerful and situation changing. Risk is powerful and situation changing.
This was my choice to risk.
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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott
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