Have you ever taken a leap into the dark?

We don’t make progress without taking risk. Without leaving our comfort zone.

Every day I leap out of bed.

I took a job, miles away from my family and hundreds of miles from my boyfriend. I was pretty sure it would break us, but I needed to work in my field. I ended up loving it, but it was the catalyst for the end of our relationship. I’m still sorry that he was hurt by it, but I have no regrets.

I’ve done it twice so far, and hurt people who were involved pretty badly. I was depressed both times I took a leap, trying to find happiness in my own screwed up way, and it didn’t work either time. I had no intention to hurt people around me, but it happened, and I regret it deeply. I was trying to create some kind of order out of chaos, searching for happiness and stability. What I ended up getting was even more chaos, unhappiness, and instability.

boo hoo

Of course not. Knowingly carrying out actions that are detrimental to others for what, personal gain?, is just wrong. I am not saying I have never harmed anyone or hurt anyone’s feelings but to do it purposefully, no-never.

When you ask about consequences you are willing to accept, don’t you mean what consequences are you willing to inflict. For example if you are unhappy with your life and disappear, leaving spouse and children behind, your consequences are the amount of time that passes that you are without their company before you let them know you are alive and well. Their consequences may include financial and emotional devastation and possibly suspicion of having committed a crime with those consequences.

We all owe at least the courtesy of an explanation for our choices to those who may be harmed by them. If you don’t have the guts for that then you shouldn’t be making those choices.

No, the only risks I have taken had just as much chance of success as of failure. My husband, our son, and I left Colorado (and the hated snow) behind with nothing but a few dollars and a lot of hope to come to California.

The only one hurt, really, was my mother, because I took her first grandchild, who she spent every day with for his first three years. When we arrived, we found that jobs were few and far between. We lived in a commune for several years, and lived a life of sharing and bartering.

I still kept close ties with my family and my parents visited relatives in California every year.

i started a horribly difficult business that requires me to become a person i simply am not. it’s incredibly difficult and continues to be a plague on my investors… so far.

Technically it seems that a leap in the dark that you are aware of the consequences of hardly seems a leap in the dark. But if you mean making decisions that you knew people would have an inevitable response to but were vital to your own life process, then yes absolutely.

But I really don’t think that anyone does anything that they truly believe is wrong but at the moment it just seems the most expedient. The motivation behind actions seems to be a fear of losing something one has or not getting something one needs. I believe we all act from an ever changing awareness at any given moment. And in retrospect it all seems clear but had we known better we would have acted differently.

But if a person is aware that a consequence is not in one’s self interest and acts in a way that is detrimental anyway, then that person is mentally disturbed. But this in fact holds no blame either because it is simply a sickness that needs to be corrected with deeper understanding and insight.

Every morning.

If I ever took a leap, knowing for certain it would hurt others, then I would deserve the consequences. It sounds highly selfish to do something like this. And what if that “leap” wasn’t everything you thought it would be? Then what?

then you learn for next time.

@sawyergirl There lies the dilemma. At some point during your life, for whatever reason, you will end up making a decision that hurts someone you know. You may very well know that it will hurt someone, but you will still decide to do that which will hurt them. Sometimes it’s inevitable and there’s no way around it.

Well, when I was young I never thought about the consequences of anything I did, so in a sense, everything I did was a leap into the darkness. But that might be reckless and not an actual leap of faith, which I think you are talking about.

If that is what you are talking about then no. I have faith in nothing.

What does your heart tell you to do?