The dangerous thing about this journey is not that we’ll give up or never try. The dangerous thing is that we’ll forget what it’s all about, that we’ll get so distracted by our victories—although they are certainly worth celebrating—that we will live for the next victory, the next big moment, and strive and work and do too much.
At the end of the day, this isn’t just about me doing yoga, is it? Maybe that’s the shape it takes, but that’s not really what this is about. It’s not about writing or cooking or traveling, either.
All of those things are good. They certainly add richness to our lives, but they all have something in common—they are all things to do.
This journey is less about doing than it is about becoming. Sometimes we have to do things to jerk awake that deep place within our hearts that holds the key to who we are meant to be. At the end of this, my success won’t be measured by the number of days in a row I did yoga, or how many books I wrote. That’s the outward sign of what I’m trying to accomplish, but it isn’t the goal.
The goal is something deeper, something greater.
The goal is refusing to settle for the smallness we’ve convinced ourselves we’re worthy of. The goal is being more, not just having more or doing more. The goal is walking toward the thing that scares us most, giving it a true try and saying, “I am not afraid.”
That’s dangerous, too, because it’s a journey that will change us. It will ultimately make us dangerous, in the best possible way, but it will first require that we leave everything behind. At the very least, it will require us to leave behind our safety nets and our self-made preservations. There will be temptations along the way, to quit, or go back, or even build new safeties and new preservations.
But in the end, when we’ve opened our hearts wider than they’ve ever been before, and dared to believe not just in ourselves but in our world, we’ll have seen that, truly, all things are possible. We’ll have experienced it, not just in an idealistic, fanciful, imaginary way, but we’ll have seen it with our own eyes, touched it with our own hands. We will know, deep within us, that we can do anything, that we are unstoppable, and so is the God who loves us. He made us in his image, after all.
Let’s live it. Let’s be willing to take this journey, really and truly, knowing that it is a very real possibility that we may never return, and if we do, we will not be the same.
Let’s be dangerous.
