Healthy Risks

    

    Once upon a time there was a man who managed a post office in the old west. He was looking for new stagecoach drivers to help deliver the packages entrusted to his care. As he worked to choose the new drivers, he had them drive the coach around a mountainous road. One stretch of this road had a cliff drop off on one side and a mountain wall on the other.

The first driver showed off to the man how talented he was with a stagecoach by driving right on the edge of the cliff. The man knew if anything went wrong, the horses and coach would be lost down the ledge. He decided to keep looking. The second driver wanted to show the man how safe he could be with the wagon and drove as far away from the cliff as possible, but he hugged the mountain wall. The man knew if anything went wrong, the horses and wagon would be shattered against the hard rock mountain wall. He decided to try one more driver. This driver didn’t stay as far away from the cliff as he could, but he didn’t go right up to it either. He drove in the middle of the road. 

Often, we have to be willing to take healthy risks. Sometimes we are afraid to get too close to the edge, so we stay as far away from it as possible. As a result, we can miss out on opportunities and stop our progress by crashing into the mountain wall. Other times, we take too big of risks and fall off the cliff. A wise person will take risks that are outweighed by the possible benefits and know when to not take an unnecessary risk.

I have met many people in my life that regret taking too many risks. People who have lost everything because of a bad investment. I’ve met people who find themselves single later in life than they want because they were too afraid to put themselves out in the world. Some are nervous to take risks because they feel they could lose all the growth they’ve worked so hard to get, but if we take no risks, we are guaranteed no growth to begin with. 

Never let the fear of risk destroy your potential. We all come to a point in life where we take a more in depth look at where we are and how far we’ve come. Nobody wants to reach that point and be disappointed with what they see. As we take measured risks, we can grow each and every day. Risk isn’t inherently bad, just uncomfortable, and that’s okay.