Paradoxical Keys to Happiness

Is it possible that the risks we take and the challenges we overcome might hold keys to our happiness? 

Contemplate with me here, do you find you’re happiest when you are busy trying to figure something out, or when your day is pretty predictable and seems much the same as the one before?

I know for me, it’s not an easy question to answer.  On one hand, yes, I want the adventure of grappling with problems and the victory of finding solutions.  On the other hand, though, I often find the process of struggling with problems highly stressful and wish for something simple and predictable while I’m in the midst of it.

For much of my life I convinced myself not to take too many risks because I didn’t want the stress and uncertainty that came with them, much less those feelings of failure raised by the possibility of making mistake after mistake.

I’m not talking about life-threatening risks, mind you.  I’m talking about something like picking up a guitar and risking my own certainty that I have absolutely no business with a musical instrument in my hands.  Thanks Mr. Recorder from fourth grade music class!  

Younger me liked to imagine he had it all figured out.  Life would be simple if I didn’t complicate it by taking on too many unnecessary challenges.  

Boy, was I clever!

Full disclosure – I defined an  “unnecessary challenge” as anything I had trouble doing perfectly.  It didn’t cross my mind that “the good life” might be anything other than challenge-free.  Who needs to make music anyways when there’s so much of it to enjoy on the radio, you know?

But looking back from my vantage point at age 49, if I had picked a musical instrument when I was a kid, practiced and stuck with it, I bet by now I would have had some proficiency at playing that instrument.  I imagine it would have added a richness to my quality of life. Possibly immeasurably. 

If I was honest with myself and made a list of all the healthy risks I intentionally avoided in my life, I would fill pages.

But let’s get down to brass tacks, my play-it-safe approach involved a great deal of restlessness.  I had far too much time to think.  Far too much time to worry.  Far too much time to talk myself out of doing the things I actually wanted to do.

If someone were to ask me, “Jason, what was more disabling for you, your speech impediment and coordination differences or your aversion to risk taking?”  

I’d have to answer my aversion to risk taking.

After writing this, I’m wondering- 

What fresh challenges do I want to undertake?

I humbly ask you to consider the same question.

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