Daring to Adventure

Helen Adams Keller was an overcomer, I think we can agree on that. One of my favorite quotes of hers is often misquoted, as below:

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."

The quote in its entirety from The Open Door (1957) is much more telling:

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."

When I went off to college, my mother wanted me to major in something that would give me security, a place to fall back on. Fifties values for women projected onto a late seventies girl. I never wanted security, and certainly not in college. Not security in the sense that the world says I should want it.

Secure job, a home of my own, health insurance. These things are harder and harder to come by today so it's a good thing I never wanted them. I'm with Helen Keller, security is mostly a superstition, like stepping on a crack in the sidewalk to break one's mother's back.

What do we think we'll have if we have security anyway?

Does it come with a guarantee? No.
Does it promise to stay the way it is always? No.
Does it offer preventatives for the future? No.

There is nothing in nature that is guaranteed. Nothing in nature ever stays the same. Nature lives, thrives, changes and functions into a variable future.

Security is a feeling I give myself. Mine comes from God. And please don't picture a bearded grandfatherly type in a toga. Not for me. The security I know arises from within me which is where She lives.

Here's the kind of security I mean:

That I am a beloved offspring of a loving Creator. And so are you.
That I inhabit a planet in a family of offspring. And so do you.
That I get to learn, grow and heal. Yep, you too!

And that, my friend, is why I am adventurer. Because learning, growing and healing are adventures. Because souls are a deep and fascinating mystery. Because I'd rather go forward into life, even the unknown aspects of it, than spend any time at all avoiding anything, danger included. Because I am convinced that the true Spirit of me chose to come to Earth as a daring adventure, and I choose daring adventure over nothing so when I get back to wherever I started, I'll have some wonderful stories to tell.