From Conscious Dancer, an article on Vin Marti clearly expresses the challenge and opportunity of taking a chance in life:

“Let’s remember that to love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure. But risk we must, because a greater hazard would be to risk nothing. Only a person who risks is free.”

Some people are immobilized by the very idea of relationships, much less intimacy. Having been hurt and betrayed in the past – perhaps many times – the fear of rejection became paralyzing. And yet, feeling alone and empty, they longed for significant connection to another.

Relationships require courage. They are rarely easy and one is always vulnerable to the unexpected. We take into them all our past hurts as well as past joys, all our history as well as our hopes and expectations. This is true, not only for long-term significant relationships, but also for the shorter-term friendships, and brief connections of any kind.

There is no “safe” way to do life. Each action requires courage in the face of risk, as Vin says: of failure, of rejection, of despair, of death itself.

Certainly, one must also be cautious. The skydiver makes careful choices and prepares for the unexpected. Only when all systems are “Go” does he make that leap. In that moment, in that free-fall into the unknown, is exhilaration and the excitement of being fully alive. It is the risk that makes the jump worthwhile.

As a dancer, or artist, or teacher, or parent, or any of the other personas that we wear in everyday life, we must risk in order to Live. And really, the only choice for those who seek Freedom is to embrace risk in the face of fear, and cast ourselves full-on into the moment.

“One must Risk in order to be Free.”