Do you see what I see?

~ safety, empowered or sunk; when our comfort zone become our cage, is that comfort our jailer or our executioner?

Playing it safe feels smart.
Avoiding risk seems prudent.

Until it isn’t.

Sometimes, the greatest danger lies in never daring.
Sometimes, the surest way to lose is never stepping off the curb.

Safety is seductive.

Its promise whispers: no loss, no pain, no embarrassment.

Don’t cross the street.

Don’t cross the bully.

Don’t think so much; ready, fire, aim …

Taken too far, safety isn’t safety at all.
Becomes fear, masquerading as wisdom.
Feels like stagnation.
Leaves us watching one train after another depart on time, while we’re still searching for the right platform.

We often hear so much talk about risk, as if it’s a reckless, dangerous thing to avoid.

Headlines scream this every hour.

Be afraid.

Be vewwy vewwy afwaid.

Sure, blind risk is reckless.

But purposeful risk, eyes-wide-open kind - isn’t that what fuels movement, innovation, and meaning? Every pivot, reinvention, bold leap, or even tiny experiment that ever mattered grew from discomfort.

Like a seed pushing through warm soil in search of sun. We watch that, wish for nourishing rain and sunshine, and we watch … we cheer when the seed germinates, breaks through.

Is it a seed-to-tree slo-mo movie? Or a weed?

Ask anyone who’s grown something, built something, changed something, become something. The cost of certainty is always too high, too safe, too late, too small.

Progress demands trade-offs.
Possibility demands discomfort.

Life, circumstances, the consequence of all our actions - demand it of us every day, it’s not about checking our notes to double-check what happens next, running a program to see what the algorithm says we should do for optimum results - because life is intense, it’s immediate, it’s in our face, it’s replying to someone’s taunt in a conversation, it’s saying yes or no without time for a gut check, it’s slamming on the brakes or swerving to avoid a head-on crash. Life or death is a constant risk because of a choice we made in a hurry.

Or joy or pain, determined in a heartbeat.

We'd better pick right, every time, without fail?

It feels like that, all the freakin’ time.

Hold on now - that’s good rhetoric when it’s country to country, trade alliances and treaty partners thread this needle of wisdom and cooperation every day. That’s supposed to be the collective wisdom of all the smartness ever assembled, but did the decision makers or their leader read and understand the report, understand the graphics, consider the consequences?

No, never well enough …

So, how can we use that as our model?

Don’t we do that every day?

Playing it safe might protect our job, guard our reputation, or help us dodge hard conversations. But rarely does safety for safety's sake win markets, earn trust, or spark real change. It might avoid short-term loss, but just as often, I think it might ensure long-term mediocrity.

Some days, mediocrity even feels like relief, the warm point-blanket of predictability.

But deep down, we know: we’re late to the party, missed the boat, watching the rocket-train launch without us. No boarding pass. No coordinates. Just inertia.

Please, don’t let us confuse risk with recklessness. Isn’t risk/reward decision making about knowing the stakes and moving anyway?

Not by impulse or distraction, not in fatigue or noise, but with deliberate intent.

It’s the entrepreneur pushing a boundary.
The professional raises a hand.
The investor is stepping in early.
The leader is trusting a new voice.
The artist is releasing work that might fall flat.
The rest of us are saying, “This isn’t working,” and trying again.

You can’t steer a parked car.

You can’t chart a new course while tethered to a dock we refuse to leave.

What feels safest might be the most dangerous place to stay.

And how might that feel?

Silent. Still. Stuck.

What if safe isn’t what we think?

What if real safety is encased within our ability to adapt? To risk growth, to lead, not because we’re guaranteed success, but because staying where we are is no longer acceptable?

Playing it safe might preserve someone’s version of their status quo, but is that our status quo, our mantra we own, or our epitaph?

But stepping out, stepping in, falling flat a few times, that’s where everything begins.

This is that what we wanted, is it not?

Risk, reward … to be continued …

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I have to wonder, as I look at this picture, how they took it? I imagine, lying on their back in the middle of the intersection, looking up with a clear sky … I recognize some buildings, this is in downtown Calgary …