When we first told our friends and family about our decision to leave our jobs, sell all of our belongings and travel for a year, we received a wide variety of reactions. Some were congratulatory while others asked if we had won the lottery. Some people, quite frankly didn’t believe us. A family member even implied we had gotten into some serious trouble and needed to leave the country (really?!?). From coworkers, I heard rumors that I was fired. It was all quite interesting.
One reaction though, left me thinking for a long time. This reaction at first surprised me, then confused me, and lastly turned out to be the initiator for some thorough self-assessment.
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| The Kids |
A few days before we left the U.S. we had a small farewell. In the middle of a crowded and loud bar a close friend pulled me aside and said, “You’re really going to do this, huh?” “Of course!” I replied and with a very serious look on his face and his hand on my shoulder he says, “Well, I don’t mean to offend you but… it’s cool that you get to get away from the stresses of work and get to go on an adventure but, but… I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do that to my kids.”
I couldn’t do that to my kids.
This caught me off guard because at first, I didn’t understand what he meant. How could I be doing this to my kids, as if it were some sort of punishment, when one of the primary driving forces was to do this for my kids?
We both kind of laughed it off and went about having some more adult beverages.
I didn’t think about it again until the next day, still a bit perplexed by my friend’s interpretation of what we were doing. Eventually I began to understand his perspective. Eventually I understood he looked at our decision as a selfish one, something meant to benefit my wife and I and oh, by the way, we have three young children, guess we better bring them along as well.
His point of view was that in us pursuing this dream, our kids would be collateral damage. Our kids would have to suffer the consequence of their parents’ wild dream chasing.
When I thought about it even more, I realized his reaction wasn’t really unique. He had just vocalized it in a less subtle way than others. Thinking back now, many people, including very near and dear family members, looked at us sideways as they say and with thinly veiled suspicion/judgement would ask, “what about the kids?”
I guess I should not have been surprised. It’s not like we had broadcasted or explained this dream to many people. And when things are left unexplained, misinterpretations and false assumptions can run amok.
Reflecting on this conversation even more, it also gave me an opportunity to really analyze our own motives. I had to take as an objective view as possible of our own actions. While we had obviously put a great deal of thought into the effects this decision would have on our children, his comment gave me a different awareness of the situation.
The Risk in Playing It Safe
First, there are the obvious “risks” to our decision. I believe these are the risks my friend alluded to. We were, after all, moving out of our comfortable home, leaving good jobs behind, pulling our kids from great schools, selling all of our belongings and traveling through a number of countries not entirely known for their safety. The concern is what for? Why put ourselves and more importantly our kids through these completely “unnecessary” and optional risks? Seems rather careless in light of the alternative – staying the course: continue keeping on with our jobs, increase our income, move into a bigger home, drive nicer cars, move into an even safer neighborhood, etc. It would be naive to think there aren’t any negative effects on our kids. We worry about the lack of interactions/socializing with kids their own age. We obviously worry about their health. We worry about the water, the mosquitos, the unknown.
However, there’s this. Doug Sundheim notes in his book Taking Smart Risks:
The dangers of taking too much risk are very clear. We’re reminded of them in the news every day…The warnings of overambitious risks are clear—watch yourself and don’t do anything stupid.
Unfortunately, we rarely hear any warnings about playing it safe.
We don’t see news headlines that say, “Low-risk approach forces local business to file for bankruptcy,” or, “Stunningly conservative move pushes global pharmaceutical company to the brink of failure,” or “Man retires after a mediocre career and feels painful remorse for never having laid anything on the line.”
The dangers of playing it safe aren’t sudden, obvious, and dramatic. They don’t make headlines. They develop slowly over time and are almost impossible to pinpoint. This fact often makes them more dangerous than the high-profile missteps we see and hear about in the news because, like a slow leak in a tire, you don’t see or feel these dangers on a daily basis. You become aware of them only when you realize that you’re stuck and you’re not really sure how it happened.
The dangers of playing it safe are hidden, silent killers.
When we understood this idea, we realized it was incredibly risky to not fulfill this dream. We realized that while we must mitigate any real and immediate dangers, there is a tremendous amount of risk in playing it safe.
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A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
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How many people hate their jobs? Jobs they’ve been at for 35 years. What was sacrificed for all of those years? What about marriages? How many loveless marriages are out there? What was sacrificed all in an effort to do the safe thing? What about parents’ relationships with their kids? All children grow up and will come to some conclusion about their parents – were they brave? Did they live a life they aspire to? Or did they play it safe? While I wouldn’t go as far to judge playing it safe as “wrong”, my wife and I were clear on the risks of such a life and wanted to pursue something else.
All this is not to say you should run wild and risk it all. But what my friend unintentionally did was solidify our decision, as misunderstood as it may be. We can look into our children’s eyes and with all the confidence of someone who has actually done it, tell them to “pursue their dreams!”
