Lesson 16 – How to find the courage to take risks

Drs Tom Rusk and Randy Read, Professors of psychology and law, respectively, at the University of San Diego, from their book “I want to Change, but I don’t know how.”

What kind of life do you want? How courageous will you be?

The choice is yours. All we humans really want is to feel good, to feel right, to find peace; we jest get tricked by our myth that winning brings all those things automatically.

One of the most common reasons why people don’t take control of themselves and don’t accept responsibility for everything they do is fear of failure, fear of being a “loser.”

Only by giving yourself credit for every effort can you ever find the courage to immerse yourself in creative action.

If we live by the principle that to try is to succeed, that to give our best effort is what it’s all about, we gain a mastery and peace.

With that attitude we slip more easily into cycles of creating and reviewing.

Good results are only a fringe benefit which may come and go, but what we do with ourselves is always in our control.

What is success?

Who measures your value, you or your audience?

Whom are you trying to impress? Your parents, living or dead, your spouse, your neighbors, or that mythical vague “they” out there you learned to dress up for on Sunday’s and holidays so as not to embarrass your family?

The myth, the cruel hoax perpetrated by our schools by the media, by our churches or synagogues, suggest success as a place, a status, a thing, a level to be attained. Choose a career, work a it until your achieve “success.” Then others will respect you and you will be happy…ridiculous!

Few experiences are more resonantly hollow than to be hailed as successful, only to feel undeserving of the admiring hoard. You need only look at the catalog of superstar entertainers whose lives prematurely ended in an agony of self-destruction.

You play first, last and primarily to an audience of one. Disappoint that one and your are bankrupt.

Cowardice stems from clutching desperately for a success we feel we don’t deserve.

Learn to lose yourself in your efforts. Learn to let go and you will have gained true courage.

Have the courage to live a life where some days will be hard and some easy no matter how clever you are.

Let go with love and energy will fill you.

Success is courageously living each moment as fully as possible.

Success means the courage to flow, struggle, change, grow, and all the other contradictions of the human condition.

Success means being true to you and to God.