risk

It's not that I don't take risks--I just do so within a very narrow range--and they are these days generally very well calculated.

The latter part is not a bad thing; the former likely is, at least given how I want to develop. I've been thinking a lot of this lately as I've seen my friends around me take risks, big and small, to build the life they want to live. A good friend who I respect immensely recently gave me the feedback that he can see me doing anything I want but that I must push myself to take those risks and to dream bigger.

This resonated with what I myself had been thinking about. Even before this conversation, this personal challenge is one of the reasons I'm trying to do something entirely new during the summer before I start work.

Part of the difficulties for me, of course, is something I've written about here before: at this stage in my life, or perhaps as part of my character, I enjoy much more to share experiences with someone else--risks, successes, failures, experiences. I have little control over that variable, however, so perhaps charging ahead is one of the greatest challenges of all, and necessary to that development, is to charge on with my own plans and preparations.