The Business of Taking Chances

"When nothing is sure, everything is possible."~ Margaret Drabble

Let me start off by quoting one of my favorite writers, Jodi Picoult who in her book "Handle with Care" said, “I wondered about the explorers who'd sailed their ships to the end of the world. How terrified they must have been when they risked falling over the edge; how amazed to discover, instead, places they had seen only in their dreams.” How many times have we lost our way, how many times have we caught ourselves in dilemma, how many times have we taken decisions on the spur of the moment, how many times have the decisions proven faulty and how many times have we regretted any of our choices. I'd say countless. Against all belief, I say that life is long. Sure, it seems to pass at the speed of light, but if only we learnt to live one moment at a time, it is a long life that we have all been granted with. That being said, I'd also like to agree that the length of our lives is relative. It all depends on every one of us, I suppose. But if you ask me, I'll take into account every one of the places that I have been to, every one of the people that I have met, every one of the songs I have learnt by heart, every book I have read, every feeling I have felt, every choice I have made, every time I have cried, and every time my heart has leaped with joy. Looking back, I have indeed lived long; I could not possibly summarize my life in a page, or a song, or in an hour. And I have, if God willing, a long life ahead of me. Many decisions to make, many hearts to break, many chances to take.

Yes, many chances to take. If you break down your life, your year, your month, or even your day, I'd say you'll notice that you take many chances. Some will prove to be disastrous while some will be just opposite. But these life changing decisions don't show up very often, for many that is. Life is made up of millions of chances that we take. Say I wake up at early in the morning desperately in need to visit bathroom. It's not that early and it's not my time to be up yet. It's 6, let’s suppose. I don't want to get up until it's 6:30. And I'm pretty sure my Mom won't let me get back to bed after my short trip to the bathroom. My mom goes for her morning walks roughly from 5:45 to 6:15, but it's raining today. Could she have gone anyways? So I take a chance, since I cannot possibly get back to bed in that condition either, and get up. I look around, and voila, Mom's not there. I run to the bathroom, get the job done and get back to sleep; half an hour of sleep can do wonders!! This time my taking chance worked. But if Mom was not gone, I’d have to be up and about. This is just an example, and a very small at that. I have to take such hasty decisions numerous times in a day. And I can bet my life's paycheck, that every one of you has to do it too. Wouldn't you agree that these experiments spice up our lives? I mean, come on, who'd want to live a monotonous life with no fun risky decisions to make. Granted, some annoy us like hell and some cost us pretty bad, but there are perks as well. If the decision we've made proves to be successful then that makes our day. I mean personally I'd do a leap dance of sorts, and I smile. *Smiling is an important exercise*

And yet, some chances that we take are no fun walk to the park either. They need your time, your attention, your deliberation; much could be at stake. Some are built with a capability to take huge risks, only some among them succeed but we should respect even those that failed, cause they learn, even by their failures and their mistakes. We should all be like that. Life is all about taking chances, so I'd say we should take a leap and bound onto that land of opportunities; grab what's there for us to take. We may fail; like they say, we win some, we lose some. It is far better to be doing something than staying back, but I won't say that's not a better option at times. However, aren't you glad that Eve took a chance and took a bite of that apple? It's because of that "sinful" decision that we are what we are right now. Now aren't you glad that Mark Zuckerberg took a chance and created Facemash(later called the amazing, Facebook) where he could invite users to rate the attractiveness of female students from various university systems? Sure he got six months of academic probation for that but he also got to be worth $14.7 billion not even a decade later that incident. On that note, I'm quoting Celine Dione with her song, "Taking Chances"

 But what do you say to taking chances,

What do you say to jumping off the edge?

Never knowing if there's solid ground below

Or hand to hold, or hell to pay,

What do you say,

What do you say?