Integrationism

Posted to the Apocaholics Anonymous group on Insight Timer, 28 March 2022.

Last night a new opportunity opened up for me that I wasn’t expecting, but which I’m very excited about.  Today I was debating whether to share the news with my parents yet, or wait until I have more details.  I opted for the latter for now, because my parents don’t do well with uncertainty.  They’re more on the cautious end of the spectrum and struggle with the idea of risk.

At the same time though, I think hearing about my journey this past year from traveling around the world on my own to moving to the Galápagos islands to open my own bookstore is a bit of a vicarious thrill for them.  If they can’t do it, they’re happy I can… But it still freaks them out a bit. 😅

I’ve definitely grown a lot more accustomed to risk over the past year than I used to be myself.  As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  Many languages have a similar saying, and in the Italian version, they actually use the word “risico”, or risk, in place of “ventured”.  Or as the Dutch say, Wie niet waagt, niet wint (“waagt” or “wagen” from the same root as our “wager”)… You’ve gotta bet to win!  Or as Faith pointed out to me, it’s the same concept as if you never ask, the answer is always no (just on a bigger scale of life).

The point is, the kind of opportunities like the one that seemingly fell into my lap last night don’t really come from nowhere… They happen when you put yourself out there, when you make yourself ready for things like that to happen to you.  It only happened because of the relationships and expertise that I’ve cultivated over months and years.  Fortune favors the prepared mind… That might seem like the opposite of the sayings about risk, but really they’re flip sides of the same coin.  Yes, you have to take risks to get what you want in life, but they have to be calculated risks, and you have to be prepared to take them on so you won’t just fall flat on your face.  The best poker players don’t just blindly go all in every hand, they know the game in and out at the tactical and strategic levels.  While you’re never going to have perfect information to act on, you want to have as much of the essential relevant information that you need to ensure a positive outcome as you can.

So there’s always a balance between playing it safe and never growing on the one hand, and acting outside your existing level of knowledge and skill and never succeeding on the other… To make steady progress, you have to constantly walk that line of always trying to go a little beyond what you can already do, but not so far beyond it that you can’t figure it out based on where you’re at now.

Of course, there’s a whole spectrum of preference that different people have for more stability versus more change, and what exactly the optimum level of risk for each person depends in part on these personality traits and other characteristics, but if you’re naturally more inclined to one side of the spectrum, you can probably improve your results simply by being consciously aware of that and trying to push yourself a little in the opposite direction… So if you generally prefer to play it safe, try doing something a bit outside of your comfort zone on a regular basis, or if on the other hand you laugh at the very idea of a “comfort zone”, maybe try to do a bit more planning than you normally do for your next project or adventure. 😅