I’m a chicken. A scaredy cat. A cowardly lion.
Always have been and probably always will be. But I’m a chicken with aspirations. Which is why the zen saying that popped up on my Facebook feed in late summer from a local writer and editor I know really spoke to me. “Leap and the net will appear,” it said.
It reminded me of something very similar I’d heard at a conference almost exactly a year ago. Take a chance, the speaker encouraged us. “Jump out of the plane and build your parachute on the way down.”
It sound so exhilarating – freeing even. But … that’s not me. I’m the planner. The organizer. The girl who was chosen to carry the passports for the quartet that travelled in Egypt at the tender age of 18. The one who wants to have thought out various scenarios and know what my response to each one will be before I get there. Heck, I have practice conversations with people in my car in advance of actually having the real one.
Oh, how appealing it sounds though. To have the courage to simply believe that it will all work out and to just go for it. It’s not that I have a problem with change. Or that I don’t want to try new things. It’s just that it’s scare to think about trying them … alone. Without a partner in crime – a security blanket, perhaps – those leaps of faith seem just out of reach.
I know I need to get past that, but it’s a really tough one for me. I’ve recently successfully learned to take holidays on my own, but I haven’t yet gone somewhere I haven’t been before. I suppose I’m taking comfort in the familiar, while inching out of my comfort zone just a little. Next step? I’m not sure yet, but I will keep pushing myself and inch by inch I’ll get there.
In the meantime, who’s with me? Who wants to take that leap and try something new and crazy? With company, I’m game for just about anything!
