Risk

I moved into Katherine-Parker Hall at Hanover College on a Saturday morning.  Mom and Dad had left by noon.  By the middle of the afternoon I had met a guy named Sam Krieg, who lived in the Fiji house across the street.  Sam knocked on my door and asked if he could run a zipline out my dorm window to a tree in front of the house.  My answer: "Of course".  So we ran the zipline, and I met the Dean of Students within my first couple of hours of as a college student.....

But I digress, Sam was something of a character around Hanover.  He had a climbing wall in his room, ran around campus naked, crashed junk cars into appliances on the Fiji lawn, and still managed to find time get good grades, and be involved at school.  Much to the consternation of the administration, he was elected to give the keynote speech at his graduation (my sophmore year).  He walked to the podium, pulled a Rolling Rock beer out of his robe (Hanover is dry), popped the beer, and much to the relief of the administration, fully clothed, began his speech.

He recounted traveling to Argentina to climb a mountain, and how the expedition nearly went fatally wrong.  During that speech, he said something that is with me still, and brings me to the real point of this post:  "A man who risks nothing, gets nothing.  A man who risks nothing, has nothing.  A man who risks nothing, IS nothing."

I find myself at a cusp where this is very relevant.  Within the next few days, I will be receiving a job offer that will afford me an opportunity to leave Bush League Consulting; something I have have sought from about the fourth hour after I walked in the door.  And now I find myself hesitating.

As much as there are days that I hate HATE working there, I am well compensated, appreciated, and generally speaking, good at what I do.  If I decide to move to the Fifth Floor, I will be putting myself at tremendous risk.  I will have to stretch myself personally and professionally, and unusually for me, I don't have the gut feeling that I know I will be successful.

So now I have to figure out how much risk I am willing to tolerate.  I've done plenty of hard things in my life.  I've never ever been afraid of hard work and exertion.  But as I sit here contemplating this decision, I have come to wonder if I've ever risked myself, have I tried to do anything I wasn't pretty sure I could succeed at?  As a scientist, I am forced to admit that there are no certainties, but generally you can constrain the variables, and with some thought, have a pretty good feel for where you're going to end up.  This time I cannot; and it is very uncomfortable.

Relative comfort versus unknown challenges.  Continued success versus an unknown set of problems.  Leaving my Anchor for waters unknown.

However, there exists Potential:  Building something of my own, recognition for what I'm good at AND like, long term success.

So now, over the next few days, I must explore, think, challenge, weigh.

Who am I?

What do I have?

WHAT am I?

-Grey