Plugged into our instincts as human beings is the awareness of danger. We are wired to look for risks around us because it's what keeps us alive. Whether it was keeping an eye out for bears thousands of years ago or looking both ways before crossing an intersection today, it is part of our programming. But within this instinctual benefit is also a double-edged sword, which is that our ability to look for risk can also lead us to play it too safe. If we are obsessed with danger, we never get around to doing that much. And we certainly don’t get to sing Kenny Loggins’ Highway to the Danger Zone with as much passion.
What I’m trying to get at it is not that our lives aren’t valuable, but that perhaps we treat our lives with a bit too much fragility. In reality, our lives are meant to be stretched, challenged, and risked. Otherwise, we live a boxed-in, safe life without the adventure we were destined for. Think of any kind of heroic story that inspires you – it always includes a protagonist risking something outside of their comfort zone to achieve something bigger than themselves. Frodo Baggins leaves his hobbit hole to take a ring across Middle Earth. Luke Skywalker accepts a mentor’s request to leave Tatooine to eventually face Darth Vader. Even in the story of America, the Pilgrims risked it all on a long voyage to find religious freedom in a new continent. We are inspired by risk, and yet, it often makes us uncomfortable. A few months ago I read a bit by political analyst Greg Gutfeld who likened this process to carrying a potato across the street:
“imagine that someone asked you to carry a potato across the street from your place to some other destination. No problem, it’s just a potato. But imagine if that someone asked you to carry a priceless Picasso across the street to the same place. The anxiety and fear explode. What about crime? The weather? Birds pooping?
Right now, I’m trying to change my filter – from thinking that I’m carrying a Picasso, to instead carrying a potato. In fact, when I’m about to do something I’m dreading, I say to myself, ‘Be a potato.’ That instantly devalues myself. I’m no longer fragile. I still watch for traffic, and don’t drive without a seat belt – but my agoraphobic nature has been eased, at least when I remember to be a potato…So, as a potato, and not a painting, I realized I could handle just about anything.*”
It’s almost refreshing to be reminded that we are not as big of a deal as we think we are. If we walk around like we are carrying a priceless painting all the time, we will probably play it safe. But I think you’d agree that doing so is not the way human nature was meant to be. It doesn’t mean we should be careless, but maybe it means we should be less careful. Or maybe it means that if we want to live a full life, we need to be a potato.
*Quote from Greg Gutfeld’s book, King of Late Night