Do you pick the safe, guarded path or do you dance with risk and leave your fate up to the magic of the universe?
ORIGINAL COPY POSTED ON INSTAGRAM DURING THE CHALLENGE
That’s what this painting asked me to contemplate last night. Those ‘fork in the road’ type situations, where you feel like life is daring you to take a gamble. .
“Will you go on this potentially life-changing experience?” Either you come out a changed person. Or you come back much the same as you were before you left. Avoid disappointment or dance with potential transformation?
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“Will you pay for this course in 12 instalments or as a once-off?”
Instalments definitely cost you more paid off over time. It’s safer though. Choose the bulk payment, and you either pay your credit card off slower and it ends up costing the same as the instalment value, or a great success comes your way and you repay the entire debt in one go.
So, why when we look at these options, do we have a tendency to go with what seems safer, even when ‘safe’ guarantees the status quo? Why is choosing the option with an uncertain outcome so unnerving?
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I think it’s because not knowing scares the shit out of us. But then, when do we ever really know the outcome? We don’t. We just like to pick the most predictable path, the guarded path. And in so doing, we’re constantly declining a dance with the mysteries of the galaxy.
Maybe there’s a reason they call it ‘The Great Unknown’. I say pick galaxy over guardian, always!
(artist retains all rights to print reproductions of this painting)