Choice. Chance. Change.

Look before you leap. Don't fly higher than your wings can carry. When in doubt, don't. And don't burn your bridges!

Sage advice we all have heard, many a time. But is it always right? What happens when it leaves you petrified? Life stops, you stop, growth stops. Everything gets smaller, tighter, contracted, boring. Depressing.

There's a reason perfectly sane people suddenly break out and seek the rush of adrenalin, whether in a mad leap into craggy canyons when bungie jumping, shooting and snorting up drugs, driving too fast on narrow roads with hairpin turns. Because taking a chance - and surviving it - makes us feel good, exhilarated, powerful.

Alive.

I saw this on Facebook the other day.

It made me stop and think. I have taken a lot of Chances in my life. I have made alot of Choices, some that made friends and family question my sanity, to the point a few declared they could not respect the choices I was making and turned their backs on me for a time. Still, I carried on down my path. Because I had to. I was compelled by some inner conviction. Was it fun? Was it easy? Was it joyful?  No.

It was Change.

Fun, easy and joyful came later.

I made the choices that I had to, the choices that called me, the choices that fit me. Not everyone else, or what they thought I should do to be a decent, perfect, civilized human being. Sometimes it took courage, sometimes it took heart, sometimes it took a massive leap of faith.

Always it took a Choice.

When people ask me about my life they often exclaim how interesting and exciting and lucky my life has been. Yes, it has. I have been lucky, but I have also been the maker of Choices, the taker of Chancers and the seeker of Change, the Captain of my life to the degree that I could fathom at the time. Which oftentimes, was not much. Not much at all. I only knew that Life could not bring me a new day untill I left the old one behind. Sometimes, you gotta burn a bridge. Or two. You gotta leap without looking, knowing full well there is no safety net in the traditional sense of the word. You have to crack your life wide open so you can let Luck in.

 It's also been alot of work, fears, tears, doubts and second guessing. There have been lots of what if's, what now's, and what for's. Long hours and longer days.

But sometimes, when life closes in, you can't take it anymore and you stand at the fork in the road, bewildered because nothing is clear, obvious, all is shrouded in fog.......that is when you have to make a Choice, take that Chance if you want things to Change. It is a choice made in the heart and when all the voices around you and in your head have had their say, there is only one voice left that counts.

That is when I close my eyes and listen to the teeny, tiny tug on my heart that tells me where to turn. And then I leap. I don't even look first. After all, once my heart has spoken, I am no longer in doubt my wings will carry me every bit as high as they need to.