I’m currently reading a book by Mark Batterson titled "In a Pi with a Lion on a Snowy Day." I’m not finished yet, but at one point, Batterson explains that there are two distinct types of regret: regret of action and regret of inaction. Short-term, our fallback is regret of action; that time you bombed a test after staying out way too late (alas, we’ve all been there), or wishing you could take back those all-too-harsh words that were said in the heat of the moment. Although these actions are far from ideal, in the scheme of things, they fade away. Long-term, regret of inaction is what lingers.
We hear about it all the time; it’s certainly not a breaking-news headline that we’ll end up regretting the chances we don’t take. Why, then, will a majority of us look back on our lives and be dissatisfied?
Why the discontentment and disappointment over something we know how to prevent?
Because we settle. We find relief, even some sort of temporary joy, in the safety that comes with comfort zones. We know what to expect; there are no surprises, no false guarantees.
The reality that no one wants to admit is that we like routines and stability. We like planning and knowing exactly what is to come. While adventure and unpredictability appeal to us in theory, only a few end up living that way. We envy them, but we also don’t want to become them.
We won’t put anything on the line, won’t risk even the smallest bit of comfort, because we don’t want to lose it.
The only problem is, in the end, you’ll realize you gained nothing. You’ll look back on your life and feel a sort of emptiness; there will be a hole, a missing piece that you cannot go back and find.
In the game of life, you may not have lost, but you also didn’t win.
You played it safe.
In a desperate attempt to prevent anything bad from happening, you simultaneously prevented anything great from happening.
Life secret: you can’t fulfill your potential by settling.
Settling is stopping when you have enough; it's one step above bad, but two steps short of great. Fulfilling potential, on the other hand, is a never-ending process. It requires going against the grain and taking a few risks.
I think so many people settle in so many aspects of their life that it’s become what we consider normal. We don’t think twice about people sacrificing happiness for what’s easy, but we call people crazy when they push for more, when they refuse to play it safe and take a chance to get what they want.
Although terrifying, it’s these risks that ultimately yield the greatest rewards. If you’re end goal is mediocrity, then by all means, settle. Skip the risk, play it safe. But if you want more, if being average just isn’t your thing, then you have to take a chance. There’s not a way around it.
You have to try something new.
You have to break the walls of your comfort zone.
You have to risk failure.
I once heard that the richest place on Earth is the graveyard. Why? Because the graveyard is home to best-selling authors, CEOs, founders of non-profits, politicians that make a difference and so many others that simply never were. Because they didn’t take a risk.
They played it safe.
They didn’t want to quit their job or move to a new a city.
They didn’t want a path of resistance.
They didn’t want to accept the possibility of things not working out as planned, and therefore they didn’t accept the possibility of things going exactly as planned.
It’s by no means easy to step out into the unknown and it’s even harder to live there, but playing it safe in life is a dangerous game because it means giving up on great. It means accepting less before even trying for more. It’s betting against yourself when odds don’t even matter.
Trust me, I know.
I’m currently in the process of working out the details of a semester-long service project. Rather than coming back to school, I’ll (hopefully) be spending 12 weeks in South Africa to volunteer at a wildlife rehabilitation center.
I’m not only going to a place where I don’t speak the language or know a single person, but to the most unstable continent in the world.
Taking a risk? Majorly. Stepping outside of my comfort zone? More like getting thrown out of it. Am I scared? Terrified.
But I also know I need to go. Maybe it won’t be South Africa or it won’t be to help injured animals, but I’ll be going somewhere and it won’t exactly be a safe place.
But I’m still going to go.
As I grow up and become the person I know I’m meant to be, one thing I know for certain is that I’m not the type of person to play it safe. I’m smart in my planning and making decisions that affect my future, but I will never be the one to stay home when I have the chance to go to South Africa.
To be honest, I hope I always take the risk, whether it’s in my career, love or anything. I don’t want to look back on my life and see nothing but regret. I don’t want to be average and end up settling.
More than anything, I don’t want to play it safe.
It’s too dangerous.
