I am a risk, I love my existence.

Wayne Gretzky, the iconic Canadian ice hockey stalwart once quoted, “You’ll always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take!”

Now, this might read, sound, feel like an insight, a motivational line of thought that suddenly provokes your cranium to replenish it’s functioning, a sudden discovery you just made over a cozy Sunday afternoon. Honestly, please just refrain from any of these actions!

Why?

Because, this thought my friend is a fact, something that lives in your subconscious brain since the day you started seeking the world around you! And in spite of acknowledging this universal truth, a handful of humans would actually action this in their lives, one of them, of course, was Wayne Gretzky!

I’ve always created a state of confusion for you, sometimes even illusion. Let’s say I am an expert in bringing alive your fears. You’d pursue me with either utmost care or jazz it along with a great sense of confidence. Irrespective of your caste-creed-religion-social status, I am bound to hound you. You’d feel the jitters as you live by me. But, as you taste success, you’d equally feel the adrenaline with just the fact that you lived by me. I am a risk, I love my existence.

You know, ideally, a human being uses the word ‘risk’ at least 3–4 times a day. But most of these references are either a suggestion to other humans (‘It’s a risk, It’s on you!’) or use personally in the past tense (‘I should’ve taken that risk…’). The very few who actually pursue me would hardly acknowledge it to the world (I am taking a risk’). And the extremely few who would be loud on my existence in their lives would either taste success (Can add the prefix — unrealistic) or experience the antonym feeling of the same. But more than the outcome, what really makes me special, like special enough to eat up a human’s entire brain space is the process of choosing me or living by it.

In 99% of your situations, I’d be difficult, impossible, brutal, and an action that owns ‘for the first time…’ tag. But, just take a minute and think why is there so much hype around me? The most basic human law says — Everything that you act in life has only two steps associated with it — 1. Objective 2. Objective achieved. It’s just that when the first word from these two steps looks, sounds, feels impossible, or with a dreaded outcome, they say the solution for the same shall be achieved by taking a risk/s. Does this essentially mean that everything out of any human’s earthly capacity can be achieved by undertaking me? Lol. Nope. Not at all.

Personally, I feel I should never exist in your lives. And not because I feel this, but it’s just so ironic that I’ve become more of a phenomenon that induces undue pressure in your head.

How? Let me explain.

Imagine one of these — you wish to start something, change something, learn something, address something (something = anything in you or your world). You’d start with an objective in your head. This objective will have an actionable outcome to it (Ideally, it should :p). Now, if you logically understand the course you’d take to achieve so, it might be filled with 99% hurdles and impossibles and *add similar adjectives of the world in it. It might even require you to change the way you currently are! The immediate next step is to plan a path to deliver this. When you break down everything into the smallest fragments, you’d pursue each step and fix up a solution to the same. Now in the ideal world, you may argue somethings are beyond human reach. Yes! You’re right! If your plan involves defying the entire earth’s gravity or reinstating the entire sun’s heat into cold waves, then yes sir/ma’am! it is beyond human reach. Maybe someday it will be put to action but the point being, when you plan an objective, it should have a sense of practicality and positivity to it, you should know what you’re doing. As long as you know what you’re doing and it’s positively affecting you and your world, no matter how difficult it is, you’re bound to find a way.

If you know what you’re doing, there will always be a path to sail through it. Yes, it might require extreme perseverance from you but you know what you’re doing and you’ve planned for it before even initiating this.

It’s only when you don’t know what your path is that you call it ‘risky’. And hence, it becomes so important that when you face a situation, a task, a problem, a challenge — you first start fragmenting it into sub-tasks and accessing the impact of the same. When you plan and exactly know the course you’d take (again, which adds positives to your world), you’d be so unknown to my existence.

It’s only when you think positive, plan your way, know what you’re doing, and add positivity to your world that you’d stay away from me.

After all, I am a risk and I do not wish to love my existence.