Take the Risk
Success is 90 percent attitude and 10 percent aptitude, and it is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration. As a young lad, I was inspired by President Theodore Roosevelt’s biography. He was a “can do” man against big odds. He wrote the following:
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at best, knows in the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with the cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.
When you are free from the fear of failure you are in a position to take the risk of living fully:
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings to another is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love . . . live. Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave; he has forfeited freedom. Only a person who risks is free.Author Unknown
Dr. Neil
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