I was sitting at my desk recently at work, busying myself with whatever was important that day. I always listen to music at my desk. Music takes me into my own world, it isolates me from all around me, which helps me focus a lot better.

But it also takes me into my dreams. The best music stirs our imagination, it moves our soul, it connects with our story – and our true self, buried in layers below the conscious self.

I don’t recall what music I was listening to at this moment, in truth. But it doesn’t matter

My mind went on a journey. Suddenly, I wasn’t sitting at my desk at work anymore. I was on an adventure. I was travelling. I was going to the places I’ve always dreamed of travelling to. I was having adventures. I was taking risks. And I felt fully alive and fully myself.

These weren’t idle daydreams. These were me connecting with my story. The story I want to tell. The story yet to be told. The story my soul is longing for.

Most of my life, I thought I was someone who always did the right thing, the one who never took risks, the guy that always made the safe choice.

That’s the story I always told myself because I thought that was who I was, but even more, because in the trauma and instability of my youth, I thought it was who I had to be. In the mess of my life, I had to be the strong one, I had to be the sensible one, I couldn’t take risks, I had to make the safe choices, just to keep myself and the ones I love safe.

But this is not me.

Two years ago I left a secure job without another to go to. I published a book. I tried to be a coach. I took a risk. I jumped. And although it took me to my lowest point, it also freed me from my past. It allowed me to confront my truest self and its’ most raw and wrestle with it. I had my soul laid bare, my false securities stripped away and came face to face with my truest self.

It was painful, it was dark, it was a risk, there was no guarantee of any outcome. I was going down the mountain below the clouds, where we cannot see, where we do not know. We can only trust in the outcome.

But wouldn’t change it for anything. It changed me. It liberated me. It showed me my true self. And in truth, I’ve never felt more alive than I did during that year without a full time job. It gave me confidence to have more adventures and take more risks.

I now myself more fully

I am an adventurer. I am a risk taker. I am a free spirit. I am wild, untamed, full of life, full of passion, full of creative energy – for my art, and for my life. I will have more adventures, I will take more risks. I will journey down beneath the clouds and up into the peaks.

I believe it is only beneath the clouds, where things are unknown, unseen, and risky, that we find our true selves.

And thus, I choose the life of a risk taker.

*****

Photo Credit: Mourguefile