Staying on Top When Your World's Upside Down

“We have repeatedly observed how easily people can become trapped by their negative assumptions. The worst case is a way of thinking that happens so naturally and usually so fast that people hardly notice. This is especially true during times of change.”
Kathleen D. Ryan and Daniel K. Oestrich: Driving Fear Out of the Workplace

Every time I see a lone cross-country bicyclist go by, I feel a pang of envy. They look so free, so independent, so self-contained. Off to see America in a way that their car-bound fellow citizens never experience it. I’ve spoken with many people about the spirit of enterprise that drives people like this – the adventurer, the explorer, the entrepreneur. Almost everyone has the same reaction I do: admiration, blended with a big dollop of envy.

That being the case, why do so few of us “just do it” – just go out and follow that road to wherever it might lead us? I was recently speaking with a friend who had lost a job. Truth be told, it was the best thing that could have happened to him. He didn’t like his work all that well, and certainly would not have chosen that career but for the big paychecks. Now he was free to try something new. Free, and scared to death. I asked him why he didn’t just break away, follow his heart down the road to see where it would lead him.

“I need a bigger safety net,” he replied. As if having just a little (or a lot) more money in the bank (that’s the way he defined his safety net – more money) would somehow make the fear go away. I pointed out that he’d worry a lot less about his safety net if he would appreciate how close to the ground his trapeze really was. He couldn’t really get hurt too badly if he were to fall. Oh, sure, he might have had to move into a smaller house for a while, or experience the humiliation of going to Uncle Ben for a loan. But there are no more debtors’ prisons in America. And chances are the closest he’d ever come to real starvation is having the pizza delivery guy show up late.

In the world that we are blessed to live in, even if you do fall, you won’t fall far, and someone will likely be there to help you back up if you do. So what is it that’s holding you back from that cross country bike trip, or whatever else it is that you have a secret longing to do? Just do it! The worst thing that can happen just isn’t that bad.