Among the best-known quotes about risk is this observation by author, Anais Nin: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more powerful than the risk it took to blossom.”

We humans have spent so much time protecting our assumptions of safety that we have often lost sight of the possibility of phenomenal fulfillment if we take the risks of going for our personal and professional dreams.

Nin is saying that there is often a greater harm in seeking safety than in taking the risk to experience life fully.

What is your history in adventuring in the human condition? What kinds of risk have you avoided? What are the costs of your avoidance? How have you seen risk avoidance behavior in your life and the lives of those around you?

A few years ago, I had the privilege of hearing poet, David Whyte, speak. He has made it his life’s work to get poetry to as many people as possible because it’s such a life saver. Whyte is Welsh, and he has a wonderfully deep baritone voice that one could listen to all day and still want more.

Here’s a link where you can hear him read his poem Everything Is Waiting For You and discuss his views on poetry. My favorite line is: Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq2NfrNt9EU

Whyte says that poetry “gives you a language that makes you able for the world – large enough for it and not to hide from it – whereas our strategic, empirical language is constantly trying to give you a read-out into which you can retreat and to say, If you get competent in this area, you’ll be safe. And it’s not true. There’s no area of competency you can enter that will keep you safe from the disappearances of life.”

How do you feel about Whyte’s point of view? Do you agree with him that poetry provides a special way of interacting in the world? Is your experience of poetry that it is empowering? Do you think poetry can be a life saver?

Our minds are reeling and our heads spinning over the state of our economy. We hear pundits talking about terrifying things from deflation to the end of capitalism. All the while, each of us is dealing with our own individual relationship to security.

Not “security” in the policing sense of the word, but “security” as safety . . . and even as a feeling of being protected against change and / or from loss.

Shakespeare said, “Security is the chief enemy of mortals.”

How so? It’s easy to say there’s no real security because change can happen in an instant. Yet, security, like everything else, exists in degrees. For example, someone with assets certainly has more *financial* security than a person who is destitute.

Perhaps the quest for ABSOLUTE SECURITY is what Shakespeare is talking about . . . the natural human desire to arrange things just so and to keep them that way.

What is your relationship to security? Financial, relational, health, safety, job?

How secure are you in your ability to handle whatever comes up in life? How can you feel more secure in the face of rapidly-changing times?

Copyright 2009. E. B. Hutt Bush and Coaching for Results, Inc.