By Mark Antony Rossi
I’ve been a risk-taker all my life. Most times it paid off but when it didn’t the damage was serious and contrary to popular belief time doesn’t heal all wounds. The very reason married people with children become conservative is because they quickly realize risks gone bad threaten more than themselves.
So, in many areas of my life I stopped taking risks for the good of the marriage, for the good of the family or for the good of the career. But as the years have gone by I feel I missed out or am missing out on opportunities due to a lack of a better word: fear.
I’m at that point in my life where I just don’t want to sacrifice happiness for an extra dollar or maybe more job security. All this risk-averse behavior is taking a toll my internal values that seem dependent on taking chances and being more creative.
I’m not sure if this happens to others but have been feeling less alive with safe choices. I don’t want to emotionally die before my time or my retirement. Sometimes I wonder if people physically die shortly after retirement because they settled for less than they were capable that the overwhelming melancholy literally breaks their heart.
If I’m going to die, I’d rather go out with a bang than a whimper forever regretting the battles never waged and the wars never won. I truly feel in my older years that avoiding risk is identical to surrender. Yet the price of risk can be lonely especially when on the path to meet certain goals eluding you a lifetime.
Look out 2017. I will grab your sales. Capture new territory. And feel younger and braver than I have in years. This is not a mid-life crisis. I am older than that nonsense excuse. But it is a personal crisis that I don’t trade my very identity to remain in a family. I happily gave up years to build it. It’s time the favor is returned.
About the Author: Mark Antony Rossi is a poet, playwright and author of the bioethics volume “Dark Tech” now available from Amazon. His most recent plays have been produced in Liverpool and New York.
http://ethical-stranger.webnode.com/