The Adventure of Living

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Our attitude to life is always a reflection of our attitude to God. Saying “yes” to God is saying “yes” to life, to all its problems and difficulties.  “Yes” instead of “no”, an attitude of adventure instead of one of going one strike. In such an adventure we commit our entire being. It is not an escape. We do not have to give up our reason, our intelligence, our knowledge, our facility to judge, nor our emotions, our likes, our desire, our instincts, our conscience and unconscious aspirations, but rather to place them all in God’s hand’s, so that he may direct, stimulate, fertilize, develop and use them. 

Paul Tournier, The Adventure of Living

Stop riding with the brakes on

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We fear failure more than we love life, so we refuse the great adventure. We are careful to do only what we have always done and know how to do well, so we never break the dull repetition of the old routine for the new creation of God. Crawl out of these tombs and prisons - there is a world of light and freedom waiting!

Have faith in God and let life be free. Stop riding with the brakes on. The soul will never grow tied down in a bed with the shades drawn. The higher we build the barricades of caution to protect ourselves, the deeper grows the grave we call our life.

A Painting not a Ladder

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When you look at a painting from a distance, you see a larger, cohesive picture. But as you approach the canvas, you see that there are, in fact, hundreds of separate strokes that make up that picture. Think about your career as a work of art — expansive, independent movements that incrementally reveal a whole.

When we visualize a career ladder, we start putting ourselves in a box. Step back and see the painting — every experience adds a brushstroke to a bigger picture. 

Zainab Ghadiyali quoted in a FirstRound article