Steve Harvey is a comedian and host of the game show Family Feud. I saw a video clip recently of him speaking to the audience after a taping. He shared some inspiring thoughts.
He said that in life, each and every one of us has a gift. It could be writing. Cutting hair. Landscaping. Baking. Teaching. Car detailing. And we know what our gift is by how we feel when we do it. Passionate. Excited. Curious to learn more.
He said we are all standing at the edge of a cliff in life. And we can either stay on solid ground and go to work day in and day out doing something that pays the bills. Or we can jump into the unknown and use our gift.
He said unless we jump, we will never know what might have been. What we could have accomplished. How we might have changed our lives and the world around us. How much joy we might have felt.
He also reminded us that when we do jump, the parachute will not open right away. We will hit the side of the cliff. We will get bruised and battered and feel like it's not working out. But if we keep going, the parachute will open up. And when it does, it will allow us to soar.
Paulo Coelho said, "You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen."
And John F. Kennedy said, "There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction."
One life. That's all we have. Are we going to jump and soar? Or will we watch and wonder what might have been?