Playing it Safe
A once brilliant poet asked this question.
I’m going to save you a whole lot of time and drama, not only would I not take the shot, but I also probably wouldn’t have left my house that night or been anywhere close to the arena.
I have spent an entire lifetime playing it safe. I’ve worked at the same place for over twenty-five years. I do the same routine every day of my life. I don’t like change at all. The only way I can justify change is to convince myself that I am currently losing or about to lose if I don’t change something soon. The only thing worse than change is losing. If I always play it safe, I will never lose. It would be awesome to get to the end of life and say that you were undefeated. Playing it safe means that you always know the expectations, and everyone knows what to expect from you. No one is ever disappointed. Playing it safe means that in most cases everyone will like you. If you play it safe, you are asking everyone else to also play it safe. That means no one gets pushed out of their comfort zone. If you aren’t pushing anyone, they feel like they are always winning. That means that you somehow earned a reputation as a winner, and you didn’t really have to do anything. So, if all of this is even almost true, why would I ever change?
Two reasons have come to me lately. First, lately playing it safe has felt like losing. When other people are taking risks and passing you, that would mean that you are losing. When everyone around has been playing it safe and you can tell that their confidence is low, that isn’t winning. When people spend more time with their head down and feeling like no matter what they can’t win, that is losing. When you look around and people are making decisions that aren’t the best, that is losing. I hate to lose!! The second reason is that I was reading a book over the weekend and the author said that playing it safe is lazy. I stopped reading shortly after reading that and just couldn’t shake that thought. Is that a true statement? It’s been about forty-eight hours since I read it, and to be honest I think it’s true. I’ve been fighting trying to find a reason to show that it’s not true, but I can’t. I was listening to a podcast this morning and I heard something very powerful. They said, “bring your identity to the game, don’t take your identity from the game”. By playing it safe all these years, I have slowly not only taken my identity out of the game, but I think I helped take everyone else’s also. My lack of movement (laziness) has changed the game so much that I don’t even like the game anymore. The game is boring and not challenging, so why even try to play? It’s not fun to watch everyone else celebrate. I don’t want a participation ribbon. That leaves me with two choices. Change the game or leave the game. For now, let’s take leaving the game out of the equation. So how do I change the game? When I think about that question, I think back to the quote from this morning. I need to bring my identity to the game. That means that I need to go out and find it again. I lost it along the way, and I don’t think I have seen it for months. It also means that everyone else needs to bring their identity. I have to find a way to break out of my boring routine and have a game plan. In sports you don’t have a game plan for the season, you have a game plan for every game. That means that seven times a week you have to walk into the day with a plan. Maybe six times if you want to honor the sabbath and take a day of rest. But six days a week, what is the plan? I see lots of opportunities for growth and improvement, I just need to start and not be lazy. A strange thing just occurred to me as I write this, we are six months into the year. My year, part of my identity. It’s time to evaluate and adjust. It’s going to be a good strong second half!