Wild Cards

Anyone ever tell you you’re brave? And you’re like what are you talking about? Yeah, me too.

When I reflected on this, I came to the conclusion when we look back on past events, people may look brave for the choices they made, but while they’re making them all it really feels like is fear. 

I haven’t met a single person who walks into something feeling brave. In fact, I think bravery is ego, it’s puffing up our chest and saying, “Look at me, making these brave decisions!” When at the core, we’re afraid.

Bravery is just a courageous decision. It takes patience, it takes thought, it takes conversation. Courage is pulled from deep within and looks scary life choices in the eyes and then has the audacity to take the next step forward. Courage isn’t rushed, but when it is decided, it is firm in its choice.

What brings about these choices are the wildcards of life. Just like a relationship, life will only hand you so many wildcards, it will only ask you so many times to jump in before it’s on its way and you’ve missed whatever was being handed to you.

When I think about my life, a lot of the perceived “bravery,” is just because I said yes when things I never saw coming were tossed into my lap. When I was handed an Ace that looked a whole lot like a measly 2 at the time. Just like in any game, you only get a certain number of wildcards. If you sit with them too long, you miss your chance to play them. Someone else can win the game, while you lose sitting there with the winning hand up your sleeve.

That is not a good feeling.

Whenever a wildcard was handed to me in my life, I sat with it for just a bit. I thought about it, I cried, I squealed and then I would fast forward in my mind and think to myself, “If I did it this way, would I regret it? If I didn’t do it this way, would I regret it?”

Those statements have been driving forces in my life. If I came to the conclusion that I’d be sitting there a decade down the road wondering “what would have happened,” or “where would I be if this…” then I made that choice. 

While it all seems to have worked out for the most part so far, hard decisions were made. It’s not always fun travel choices you’re making. Sometimes it’s if you’re going to have a baby with a guy states away.

But there were some decisions that weren’t so hard for me, like going to New York City for 48 hours on a whim, exploring London with a guy I met in Vegas, and taking a 5-day road trip by myself. Same questions, “What would happen if I didn’t do this? Would I regret it?” And yes!

Those things seem fun and who wouldn’t want to do them? But guys, that’s life! So many people say NO to those things, because “we have work,”  “Only 2 days in NYC? That’s not enough time!”  People say no to life’s adventure on the DAILY. Newsflash: When I said yes to all those things, it was not perfect timing, my bank account was not overflowing and I definitely had other obligations. But my life, my precious life, is worth so much more than simply maintaining responsibility.

I’m writing this because so many of us get caught up in a monotonous life when adventure is always just sitting there at the edge of our fingertips. It doesn’t have to be a plane ticket to somewhere tropical. It’s real life and I think that’s where we’re missing it. Saying yes to get lunch with a coworker, buying the expensive shirt out of your color pallet, trying to plant a garden even though you have no idea about gardens, taking the job 3 hours away and moving, hosting Thanksgiving, making your neighborhood dessert, checking your kid out of school for a lunch date. Make that choice.

Play your wildcards. When you do that, life unfolds in a beautiful way that you could have never seen coming!

If I hadn’t played my wildcards, I wouldn’t have left relationships, I wouldn’t have my children, I wouldn’t have married James, I wouldn’t have any travel experiences under my belt, I wouldn’t have a teaching career, I wouldn’t be living in Texas, I wouldn’t have the amazing friendships I have, I would not be as happy as I am.

Was I always confident in the choice I was making, while I was making it? No. Sometimes these choices are painful and you have no idea how they’re going to play out. And some choices ended up hurting like heck, but ya know what I’m still not left with? Regret. The sting of a choice that just doesn’t work out, is less than that of the long pain of regret that can haunt your thoughts for your entire life.

Life is always dealing a winning hand for you, full of delicious experience. 

You have to make sure you’re paying attention to the wildcards you’re being handed. And then, the trick is to play them.