People must think that risk-taking has to be scary or monumental or life-threatening to be significant. Like bungee jumping or sky diving. Both are life-threatening risks, and probably simultaneously scary and monumental. Anyone who has ever been bungee jumping or sky diving seems to do it when they turn 3o or on some other milestone birthday. But regardless of the date, the sheer act of jumping out of a moving plane from thousands of feet in the air or off of a bridge from hundreds of feet in the air with only a bungee cord as security no doubt creates a life-long milestone that marks a moment in time that will forever be remembered.

Bungee jumping and sky diving are huge risks, right? What if the parachute doesn’t open or the bungee cord snaps? Then what? So far I haven’t been able to bring myself to take either one of those risks.

But risks don’t have to be huge. Risk-taking in its simplest form is the equivalent of trying something new. Like a new food, for example. If you have never tried sushi, as I had never done for many years of my life, it is a risk to try it for the first time. All you sushi lovers are probably thinking, what is the risk in that? Well, I risk a bad taste in my mouth if I don’t like it. I risk the embarrassment of spitting the food back out on to my plate in front of friends, whose feelings I don’t want to hurt, or who I don’t want to think badly of me. I risk making a funny face in front of the boy I’m with on a first date. I risk all the things that could happen with a bite of sushi gone awry.

Learning to ride a bike for the first time is also a risk. A boy learning to ride his bike risks falling off the bike, scraping his knee, ripping a hole in his blue jeans or worse, getting tangled up in a dog’s leash as his neighbor walks by, causing the dog to go haywire, run wildly, pull the bike much faster than the he can handle until both he and his neighbor fall to the ground in a tangled mess of bike, leash and slobber.

But isn’t bike riding as big of a risk as bungee jumping or sky diving? What if he wasn’t wearing a helmet and he gashes his head open on the sidewalk curb? Then what? Does that risk keep him from learning to ride, or from getting back on his bike after a fall?

Riding a bike is something that most people do, and it’s risky. Heck, just leaving the house every day is risky — you risk the chance of being struck by a car while crossing the street. People do this every day, risking their own life to cross a city street, and yet they shy away from sharing a part of themselves with the world. They shy away from pursing their true passion and thus their true identity because they are afraid to risk rejection or criticism or worse, failure.

I’ll be the first to admit that rejection and criticism and especially failure are uncomfortable. But why not risk being uncomfortable at least until you find out whether or not it’s worth it? I would rather risk the bad taste in my mouth than live with the unanswered question of whether or not I like sushi. Tasting sushi for the first time is not scary or monumental or life-threatening, but it’s definitely significant.

So why not try something new every day? Try to take at least one risk (or five) every day? I’m not suggesting that everyone quits his or her job like I did, but I am suggesting to try new things that will test the limits of your uncomfortableness.

For as much as I whine about teaching sometimes, it’s always refreshing to read something like this at the end of a semester (from the Reflective Introduction of one of my student’s final portfolio):

The most challenging thing I’ve learned through this class is how to “murder my darlings.” It’s so difficult to read through my own work with the critical eye that it needs. I have a hard time just cutting things out, especially when I like to entertain while informing my audience through my writing. Throughout this class, with the help of Professor Santoro’s comments, and also eventually through the workshops we did with the class, this got a lot easier to do. It also helped me to write my rough drafts, leave them alone for a day or two, and then go back through them one by one, line by line; as a stranger. I found that if I put them away for awhile, it was much easier to go back through and just cross line after line out. Or reword something, or add things here and there. Maybe move this paragraph here, and get rid of that one completely. I could do this without cringing after all the hard work and time I had actually put into the writing had subsided.

The best thing I’ve taken away from this class is the desire to continue writing. I’ve found that it’s just as enjoyable as reading. Writing makes me look at my surroundings differently. It makes me more observant. I find myself jotting things down all the time. Little snippets of conversations, a quote I heard, an observation at the park, and anything else that has the possibilities of exploration and writing potential. I have opened my “writer’s eye” through the course of this semester. I write because I never know what could end up in that little journal floating around in my purse that could lead to an amazing paper. The great thing about writing is that I never know where that writing will take me. I learn through my writing, not just about what I happen to be writing about, but I learn things about myself as well. So, enjoy my compilation of hard work, sweat, and tears Professor Santoro, and have a fantastic summer!

There is a certain local publication that I have practically been begging to give me work for something like two (or more) years. (Did you read that? TWO years.) I even went so far as to risk coming off as a semi-psycho fan girl to meet the people behind the masthead. The story goes something like this…

It was 2nd Saturday in Midtown, and I happened to know where the owners and publisher would be that night. How did I know, you ask? What a silly question! When you obsess over something, you make it your business to know these things. (Really, they had advertised the event in their own magazine.) So, being the risk-taker that I am, I got all gussied up, made the rounds to a couple of venues (so as not to appear uber eager) and eventually wound up at the aforementioned exhibit sponsored by — well what do you know? — the very publication I’d been pitching for the past 6 months. Imagine my surprise.

I chatted up the intern working the promo table, who, upon asking me what I do (freelance write and edit), dutifully introduced me to the appropriate people. We made small talk, traded cards, exchanged a couple of emails and, a few weeks later, met for drinks.

Some people may call this stalking. People who claim to be my friends accused me of stalking. My own boyfriend accused me of staking. But do I care? No. And I’ll tell you why: Last week, the publisher from this story called me up and offered me a project. He needed someone with experience as a managing editor to turn it around in less than two weeks. He called me.

Maybe I was stalking just a little bit. But I don’t see the non-stalkers, or should I say non-risk-takers, getting this kind of phone call.

My point is two fold: 1) risk-taking does pay off, and 2) sometimes it just takes a while.