Risking oneself

I had a long chat at coffee today that stretched into dinner-time. Behzad has just returned from seven months in mostly Germany and Turkey and is settling back in to life here. Watching someone else settle back in makes me remember how it has felt when I have done the same. There's culture shock just between two cities in the same country, never mind from one continent to another, but there is also the process of reorienting to the next phase of your life. I can look at who I am and what I am doing again, as I re-enter.

We were discussing life purpose. (Just a light afternoon chat!) What if our choices about what we do in our lives could have potentially life-changing effects on the people we love? Do we have the right to make that choice? That's an awfully big responsibility; a huge risk to take.

It was topical for me because I have been thinking along these lines recently. My choices don't put anyone's life at risk - at least not so directly - but for me to do what I believe I am here to do requires saying what I see, to people who might feel it changes their lives. In particular I'm thinking about observations that impact people in a powerful way, not just noticing that they are avoiding a friend's dinner invitation. It's the big stuff I'm interested in and cautious about. I'm watching for the people who might be ready for that sort of change. They have to want it, and I have to be ready to be that honest; perhaps that audacious.

The personal fear is that if I stick my neck out, I might get it chopped off. It's not rational but it has the same effect as someone threatening my family in that fear is fear, especially if it isn't conscious. In some cases, fortunately not mine, the fear for one's life could be literal but it doesn't have to be literal in order to make me hold back rather than taking a risk. The sorts of choices that fly in the face of my fears require that I be courageous; maybe not in the same way as the person whose life will change because of what I say, but in a way that could be critical to the success of that person's effort to change. Collectively, I think it's these life changing, but not life and death, decisions on the micro/individual level that create the aggregate changes on the macro/global level.

We were observing what is happening politically in Turkey and how a person's macro-to-them but micro-to-the-nation choices play out on the level of national and international politics. At what point would my beliefs be strong enough that I would take to the streets in protest? How much will I risk? How much will any of us risk and under what circumstances?

We live in a world where corporations and governments spend a lot of money reearching and manipulating our fears, in order to get us to spend money and/or make choices that will lead us to surrender our power and freedoms. I believe that both fear and hopelessness can stop people from exercising their own personal power. My buying into any sort of fear will preoccupy me with my own safety or relieving the pain of uncertainty. In that state, especially at low, insidious levels, I lose some of my critical faculties. If my fears and insecurities keep me busy scrambling to make myself good enough or safe enough, then maybe I won't have time or energy or esteem enough at the end of the day to do what is really important in my life-plan.

Maybe this is where our low self-esteem issues come from. I doubt that I can really feel good about myself if I'm not doing what I came to this planet to do. I might not even allow myself to be aware of what that is. Avoiding fear and insecurity doesn't make us feel joyous, especially if there is more of it for us to deal with tomorrow.

But what is also interesting is what makes people act on their principles.

I'm curious about what happens inside myself that compels me to choose an alternative path to the norm, perhaps a path that appears risky to others, and feel that there isn't really a decision to be made. Or what might make me screw up my courage and make the choice anyway - in spite of what flack I may get about it? Someone else looking at the same circumstances might not be prepared to take the same risk. At what point does my dream become something which drives me to take action? At what point does the safety of one's family become less important than an ideal? How does one live with that choice? Is such an act one of supreme faith and idealism or is it one of supreme arrogance and selfishness? And how do we reconcile this?

To me the juice of life lies in making these choices and seeing how they play out. It isn't always about big, high-profile choices that would change the fate of nations, although collectively, the aggregate effect of these smaller choices could do just that. It's more about every one of us and the daily choices we make that would never make the dinner news hour. What if we all lived the life we felt called to live instead of the life that we settle with because it is safer? Would we feel fewer regrets when it comes our time to die? Does one small, courageous choice empower or inspire others to do the same, or bigger? Does it create ripples on the global pond? I hope so.