“Safety first”, “Better safe than sorry”, “Accidents hurt – safety doesn’t”, “Safety saves sickness, suffering, sadness”…
I hear them often, especially recently; all the great sayings to teach us well and keep us safe. And I agree, safety is important: “keep your distance, wash your hands, stay safe, stay healthy”. It may prevent us from getting sick, sometimes, it can help to stop the spread of a virus… BUT, is “safety first” always the best for us in our everyday life?
Without taking any risk, without reaching beyond our comfort level and “safety box” we don’t grow. Growth happens only in discomfort. We might be “sorry” sometimes, but we might also learn something incredibly important and beneficial. If we always “play it safe” we may neglect to learn one of the most important life skills, CRITICAL THINKING.
Look at the children: they learn by trial and error. In order to learn to walk, they have to try and fall many many times. Every time they fall, they figure out what they did wrong and try it again. We cannot keep them tied up in a cage until we are sure that they can walk safely.
If you want to learn new skills, you have to risk failing. Playing it safe won’t teach you how to do things, it may only teach you that you are weak and incapable of anything new.
Everybody’s comfort level is different; different things make us feel “unsafe”. Some get sick walking a suspension bridge, others climb the walls without blinking. I always wonder what makes one person bold and daring, and another one timid and cautious. Is it the way they were brought up, or genes? Nature or nurture? Possibly a little bit of both.
Safety is very personal. What scares me may not scare you. We fear different things. However, living in fear is not good for anyone. Fear is paralyzing, it stops us from living. It doesn’t matter how “safe” we stay; we cannot protect ourselves from every danger. We will still get sick, get injured, and die at the end of our time.
Our personal fears will define the life we live. Maybe sometimes we need to be “sorry” rather than “safe” to learn our lesson, to get exposed to something new, to push our limits? This is a very individual decision and nobody should be setting those limits for us (except for some public rules and regulations, of course).
Don’t let FEAR determine who you are. Step into the unknown sometimes to see how strong and brave you can be. Try new things, meet new people, learn new skills. You might not be always safe, but your life will be more colorful and interesting.
By Eva Sadowski
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