If you don’t take risks, you’ll never really live, you know. At least not life to the fullest.

There are all kinds of risks. They don’t necessarily have to be dangerous.

It’s risky to leave a job and start another where you’ve been comfortable for so long. You know everyone and know exactly what you’re doing, but you’re not getting ahead in your career. And you think you’ve now found the perfect job. More money. More responsibility. And already a step up from where you are now. 

But still, it’s new. You’re starting over, sort of. You don’t know anyone there. Will you be accepted? Or feel out of place? What if you don’t like it? Because there’s no going back.

But what if you do, and it turns out to be everything you’ve wanted?

It’s risky to move from where you’ve been renting for quite awhile and become a homeowner. 

It’s also risky to sell your home in one city and move to another one in a new city where you don’t know anyone.

And it’s really risky to take that leap

of faith to quit your job and start up your own business, knowing you only have about three months’ worth of savings to fall back on if it doesn’t work.

It’s risky to finally decide to make a break from a bad relationship, either a long term dating situation or an unhappy marriage. Because you don’t know how hard it’ll be to start over. And if it was an abusive relationship, you don’t know whether he/she will try to come after you.

There’s also a risk in agreeing to certain surgeries, whether elective or not, because there are always certain kinds of complications in any surgical procedure.

These are the serious risks. But there are hundreds of risks we all take in any given year. Maybe even more. 

Because if we don’t take some kind of risk almost every day, we don’t grow. We stay in the same place, not moving ahead in life, and sometimes even going backwards. 

Now I could mention risks like skydiving or white water rafting, both of which would be huge risks as far as I’m concerned, but those aren’t the risks we’re talking about here. I’m talking decisions we’re called upon to make every single day that can affect our lives, and we don’t really think about them. Maybe I should call them opportunities, or choices, instead of risks, because that’s really what they are.

Without taking a chance on something in life you aren’t going to go forward. Do you want to be in the same place next month you are today?  Or are you going to see what else is out there for you?

And you’ll never know unless you make a decision to take a risk. Because that’s what life is all about.