Audacious: (adj) showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks.

I am very curious exactly how many miles one would have to run with a stick before actually tripping, falling, having the pointed end of the stick lodging in the eye.

Yet we were led to believe that such careless running with loosely held wood would ultimately most certainly lead to blindness.

We were not raised to be risk-takers.

So rather than ending up with a generation of people who are careful planners, adept at common sense, we have an “earthful” of cautious, lazy folks who occasionally rebel by actually doing things that are dangerously risky.

If you continue to avoid activities which merely demand a certain amount of skill because you think they’re risky, you’ll eventually get fed up, go out and enter a jalopena-eating contest.

Somewhere along the line we have to teach our children that the pursuit of excellence does bump up against risky endeavors, but the power of planning and the presence of practice does enable us to run with a stick without gouging our eyeballs.

I have taken audacious risks all my life.

I will tell you this–simply writing a blog on the Internet is risky business. The possibility for obscurity, criticism or being stalked by a person with a manic disorder who doesn’t like to swallow pills is always prevalent.

But it will take some risks for us to avoid greater risks.

It will take the frightening thought of negotiation to keep us from negotiating another war.

It will take risky conversations about racism to eliminate dead young men in the street.

It will take brave souls insisting on the common humanity of men and women to bring about the true peaceful interaction which will prevent us from being constantly at each other’s throats.

What is worth the risk?

Any time we have the chance to advance the cause of peace, liberty and justice, it’s well worth getting up out of our easy chair and grabbing our baton (which is just a stick)… to start running. 

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

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