Almost half a year ago, someone told me they believed that every four years you should take a risk and do something that will alter your life’s course.
Four years – that’s 1,460 days. For some this might seem like a long time to go without change, for others it might not be long enough.
It was during that conversation that I was naively surprised by the fact that I hadn’t taken any real, life-altering risk since I was 18 years old and decided to go away to university. Despite many exciting things happening since then, I had been more or less just going through the motions, following the path that unfolded in front of me for the past six years.
Obviously, my 1,460 days were up.
With the four-year deadline in the back of my mind, I started thinking about taking risks and making intentional changes. Some time went by, and strangely enough, it was an analogy about boiled frogs that prompted action.
Some of you may have heard this before, but for those who are as I was – unaware of how boiled frogs pertained to anything other than being a French delicacy – this is how.
To boil frogs, we can’t just throw them into a pot of boiling water. If we put them into boiling water right away, they will jump out, because they obviously don’t want to be boiled alive.
We must put them into water that is at room temperature, then turn up the heat very slowly. The frogs’ bodies are naturally equipped to adapt to the changing temperature, and thus, they will be adapting to the temperature as it rises, slowly cooking without realizing it. Eventually the water will reach a boiling point, at which time it is too late for our frog friends – they have been cooked and are dead – having adapted very well to the increasing heat, but remaining unaware of the time passing by outside of the pot.
This is a metaphor for life, and while we aren’t amphibians cooking in a pot – we could very well end up in a metaphorically similar situation.
Instead of a pot, it’s a house or office. Instead of our body adapting to the water, we’re adapting to deadlines and daily demands. Before we know it, we’ve adapted to everything that life has thrown our way, the water is boiling, and we’ve lived the same, risk-free year for the past 40 and called it a life.
So, if you’re like I was, and can’t remember the last time you took a risk, intentionally changed your life’s course just a little or by a full 180 degrees – consider this day number 1,460, and hop on it.
Julie
