What Would You Do? Play It Safe Or Take a Risk?

“To take that risk, to offer life and remain alive, open yourself like this and become whole.”

Margaret Atwood

NaBloPoMo Prompt: Do you think it's better to play it safe or to take risks?

It feels like eons ago I had a boss who was so different than me I don’t know how I lasted there as long as I did. The thing is, he was so different not to the outside eye, but to those who dared to look inside, there were parts others were not able to see.

One of the things he loved to talk about was “a safety net” – except he never put one out for his employees except for a coveted few. It was more like an “unsafe net with holes” for me. Quitting that job without a safety net in sight was just about the most safe yet actually risky thing I have ever done in my life.

It has almost been fourteen years.

There are times when I think I was nuts for quitting and wish I was back into a world of steady paychecks, retirement plans and paid vacations but then I remember how miserable I was there. By leaping directly into writing, life coaching, teaching and speaking I was risking – yes – but I was also choosing consciously the life that would lead me back to myself.

On my desk is a photo of my two younger children from a trip we took to the beach several years ago. It is one of my favorite photos of them. Emma is wearing her pink glasses and Samuel is wearing a grin fit for a forest sprite. Their hair is wind and beach blown. Their eyes are a matching shade of blue, a lot like my own.

They are together wrapped in a soft, blue blanket.

Emma was a toddler when I took that big risk. Samuel wasn’t conceived yet. None of them know a work-for-someone else Mommy. I look at their faces and I realize the safest thing I could ever do was to take that leap, to risk everything, to gain so much more.

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Writing at Emily Dickinson's House (see the Yellow Home in the background? Julie Jordan Scott is a Creative Life Coach, a Poet Performer, a Writer and a Mommy Extraordinaire. Stay in touch with her via twitter or facebook or you may always call or text her at 661.444.2735 to arrange a complimentary coaching session. Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot

Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

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Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott - See more at: http://juliejordanscott.typepad.com/julie_unplugged/#sthash.fhpD8ozB.dpuf Julie Jordan Scott is a Creative Life Coach, a Poet Performer, a Writer and a Mommy Extraordinaire. Stay in touch with her via twitter or facebook or you may always call or text her at 661.444.2735 to arrange a complimentary coaching session. Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot

Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott - See more at: http://juliejordanscott.typepad.com/julie_unplugged/#sthash.fhpD8ozB.dpuf Julie Jordan Scott is a Creative Life Coach, a Poet Performer, a Writer and a Mommy Extraordinaire. Stay in touch with her via twitter or facebook or you may always call or text her at 661.444.2735 to arrange a complimentary coaching session. Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot

Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

- See more at: http://juliejordanscott.typepad.com/julie_unplugged/#sthash.fhpD8ozB.dpuf