Life is being on the wire. Everything else is just waiting. – Rick Wallenda
We’ve been keeping our quotebook since 1988 and it is up to 94 pages and over 30,000 words and while we don’t rank them, if we did this one be in the Top Ten and maybe even the Top Five. Rick Wallenda is a tightrope walker and today’s Thought came after Rick completed the same tightrope walk that had killed his grandfather, Karl.
Every now and then life presents challenges, events that take us out of our norms and our comfort zones, putting us in a situation we’ve seldom, perhaps never, encountered. Invariably, this will be a circumstance where our very best is demanded, seemingly drawing on every skill and talent – and sometimes emotion – in our personal arsenal.
Life being life, this can be a challenge that came up suddenly from seemingly out of nowhere, or it can be a challenge we’ve spent an awful lot of time preparing for. It could be a moment where firmness with our children will produce dividends that will pay off for them many more times in their life, or it can be a challenge at work that must be met or it can be stepping on the field or court to officiate a ballgame that is as important to the players as it is to you.
What it is is of no particular consequence; it can be anything. What matters is that we have them from time to time in our life. Because when we have them we are generally showing ourselves and the world that we are trying to better ourselves, to do something we haven’t done or be someone we’ve never been. Because if we are not trying to be something better than we’ve been in the past then we are not making our time on this planet serve us, we are merely serving a sentence.
What wires are waiting in your life? When they appear will you have the courage to walk them, risking both success and failure, or will you take a pass, while others walk on theirs?
We cannot answer that question for you and you can’t answer it for us, but the answer determines whether we will ultimately be looking back at a life where we did well or a life where time was squandered.
The Thought for the Day runs regularly. All quotes are from Gaylon’s private stock.
