Risk

I'm usually not one to spread quotations. I've never been an email forwarder of insipid inspirational messages, but from time to time, I run across a quotation that I want to remember. My Powerbook has a slick feature called the "Dashboard." You click on this, and you add things called widgets which will appear onscreen to provide you with any information you desire. One widget gives me the weather, one gives me the cheapest gas within 20 miles and one is a beeline straight to epicurious.com. Yet another is called the "Quote Genie." Basically what it gives me is a random quote anytime I click on the "genie bottle." Unfortunate interface, but good idea.

Today's quote was one that rings true to me. This is how I desire to live my life.


Risking Freedom


To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk being called sentimental.
To reach out to another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk showing your true self.
To place your ideas and your dreams
before them is to risk being called naive.
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 risks must be taken,
because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing,
does nothing, has nothing,
is 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.

--Leo Buscaglia