“Chances multiply if you grab them.” ~ Yogi tea bag
We too often think that this is our one big chance to try something new, to do something we’ve always dreamed of. We fear that if we don’t take this leap now, the opportunity will pass us by and if we leap and fail, then we’ll head back to our existence prior to the leap with the comfort that at least we tried. No one really talks about the second chance, the one that happens precisely because we took that first chance.
Our existence in this moment, exactly as it is, is one-of-a-kind. We will never pass this way again. Robert Frost so beautifully described this sentiment of choices and the magic that they create in his poem The Road Not Taken: “Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.” Once we make a leap, it begets another leap. The chances we take lead to other chances, not back to the place we started.
Perhaps this is the reason why leaping is so frightening in the first place. If we knew we could always just go back to our jumping off point, then we’d leap all the time without even considering the consequences. There would be no risk. And probably no fun, either.
Consider a time you made a real leap of faith that didn’t work out as you planned. When I went to business school, I intended to return to the nonprofit world as a fundraiser. It didn’t really happen as I planned. The chances that appeared after I took that chance to go to school multiplied exponentially, expanding my view of the world and my place in it. In the nearly 5 years since I graduated, I realized that I hadn’t gone to school to return an established nonprofit. I went to school to figure out how to create my own nonprofit. While a student, I didn’t know that but somehow the Universe had a far greater intelligence on that front than I did. Way got on to way, as it were, despite my efforts to steer my path otherwise.
It’s what Goethe meant when he talked about the magic in commitment. Part of that magic comes from taking chances, knowing that more chances lie ahead that will be able to trace a direct line back to that first chance we had the courage to take. I don’t believe that on every side of a chance there will be a net to catch us, but I do believe that opportunity taken leads to more opportunities available. And that is as good a reason as any to leap.
Christa Avampato 