“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

~ Helen Keller

September 22, 2002

Welcome to Wyndspirit Dreams! Is your life a daring adventure? Mine certainly isn’t, and I’m not sure I’d want it to be. Still, this quote has a valid point. I like security. I think most of us like security. But have you ever thought about what you give up so you can have security? And is it really security?

When I was nineteen, I left my home, the only place I had ever lived, to move clear across the country to stay with people I had never met. I had no place to live, no job, and only a couple unmet pen pals. It was the best thing I’ve ever done. I would never do it again.

Eventually I moved back home, and here I plan to stay. I went to college and took up computers because that seemed a secure thing to get into instead of following my dream of going into either psychology and social work (because I was told “everybody” goes into that and there’s a market glut) or library science (because I know there are very few jobs available). By the time I graduated, my training was already obsolete, and I could not get a job using my college degree at all. Had I chosen library science, there have been recent openings for dream jobs I might have gotten. I took a job that I knew I would dislike just because it appeared to be secure. Then last year the company got turned upside down and now I wonder from month to month how much longer I will have a job. Mind you, I am not saying that I made the wrong decisions. I made the best decisions possible with the information I had at the time. What I am saying is that the decisions were based on what appeared to me at the time to be the most secure choices, and, as it turned out, they were not secure at all!

Security is mostly a superstition. Let’s face it, life is chancy! There is nothing wrong with seeking as much security as you can find, but if there comes a time when you are forced to choose between apparent security and “daring adventure,” between what you think you should do and what your heart wants to do, think about it. If security is mostly a superstition, an illusion, anyway, maybe you ought to give serious consideration to the daring adventure!

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