Risky business

I slammed the tailgate of the pick up truck shut, and turned around to hug my parents goodbye.

For the second time in five years, I was leaving Western Pennsylvania.

It was September 11th, 2006. I was 29 years old and had rented a room in a dingy apartment on the other side of the tracks in Boston. I was leaving a six-year relationship, working for minimum wage at a camera shop, and headed off to a city where I had only one acquaintance – a woman I’d met exactly three times. (Her name was Sheila. Yes, that Sheila…)

As it turns out, that move was one of the best risks I ever took.

But a few years before, in 2002, I’d packed my Ford Escort and driven to New Mexico for grad school, and that move had crashed and burned. I suffered a major depressive episode, left my position as a teaching assistant at the University of New Mexico, and drove back to Pennsylvania six months later.

Then I went to work as a salad bar attendant…

I have a high tolerance for risk, and I’m grateful for that. I took a risk when, as an incredibly shy 15-year old I played on a traveling softball team. I took a risk by attending a college further away from home, where I didn't know anyone. I took a risk when I joined a convent in 1999 when my friends were asking what the hell was wrong with me.

I think with risk, we sometimes get stuck in the fear. We live in the place of what ifs (which is a great poem by Shel Silverstein), convincing ourselves of all of the things that will go wrong before we even take the first step.

Did you ever talk yourself out of applying for a job because you were afraid you wouldn’t like it? Even though all you were doing was applying for the job?

Sometime in my late teens, I decided that I would say yes to any opportunity that came my way (within reason).

My filter question then was the same that it is now.

What's the worst that could happen?

We might get rejected. We might fail. We might drive home to Pennsylvania with our tails between our legs and have trouble explaining why graduate school didn't work out.

We forget, sometimes, that we can survive feelings. We really can.

In the summer of 2015, I took a risk to quit my job and take an unpaid internship at a gym outside of Boston. As it turns out, that was the best risk I'd ever taken in my life.

Because it led me to where I am now.

Take a minute and list out all of the things that you want to try. List out the fears you have about trying those things.

Then list out all of the possibilities that taking those risks might lead to.

Move through the fear.

What's the worst that can happen?