Letting Go of Yourself

LETTING GO OF YOURSELF

30 March 2006

I want to learn something new each day and thanks to a college friend, I was able to pick up some useful thoughts on how life should be lived. I’m not sure if I have read this somewhere in the past but reading it now at a point in my life when I am contemplating certitudes is a road sign telling me to take my chances in life and see where it leads me.

Thanks Jon!

RISK IT

Leo F. Buscalia

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.

To weep is to risk being called sentimental.

To reach out to another is to risk involvement.

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd is to risk being called naïve.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To live is to risk dying.

To hope is to risk despair, and to try is to risk failure.

But risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing and becomes nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.

Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave, he’s forfeited his freedom.

Only the person who risks is truly free.

Wow, isn’t that wonderful? It’s like letting go of yourself and letting life take its course. I wish to share this beautiful passage to others because I feel that there are many out there, like me, who have been crippled by the fear of the unknown. The “what-ifs” that haunt every decision that one makes, the reigns that hold one back, the “NOs” to every opportunity to move forward.

Life has been good to me. Many times I say that and many times I have told friends about it. And each time I remember that point in time when I was alone, lonely and lost, I remember being blessed having God on my side. At that time, I had nothing but my faith. The Lord never abandoned me. And I am a living testimony that faith, even if it is the only thing you have, can make you survive even the harshest trials and lashings around.

And because of God’s goodness and compassion, I am compelled to give more and do more for others. And I want to do it unconditionally. It is my mission and my moral obligation to pay it forward. God’s soldiers should never sleep.