IS IT SAFE?

"Open wide and say AAAAHHH!!!!"

"Is it safe?"

That's the question Laurence Olivier kept asking Dustin Hoffman in the classic 1976 thriller "Marathon Man."

Unfortunately for Hoffman's character, he was strapped to a chair and every time he failed to answer, Olivier, who was playing a former Nazi, started jabbing into his victim's cavities with dental instruments.

It all had to do with a stash of diamonds, you see. So the Olivier Nazi fella really needed to know, well, if it was safe.

A friend and I were talking about this scene recently and it sort of stuck in my head.

The "Is it safe?" thing is almost like a metaphor for life, or how some people go about it.

Obviously, life isn't safe. As well as all the good stuff, it's riddled with pitfalls, disappointments and tragedies. And it inevitably ends in death. So no, it isn't safe.

But it's not meant to be.

It's meant to be lived. And pitfalls be damned.

And to my way of thinking, a huge part of life is taking on challenges and surmounting them. From personal challenges to things that affect millions of people.

I think about all the people who give up their comfortable lives to take on the challenges of others. People who go to Third World countries and help the sick and needy. People who work tirelessly, often for no pay, helping those less fortunate in their own countries.

Some would say they take a risk. They may lose the opportunity to earn better salaries. They may put their health, even their lives, in danger. They may lose everything.

I want to talk more about these folks another time when I discuss who the real heroes of the world are. For this blog post, I just wanted to set up the premise that you often have to take risks to gain anything really important in this world (no, I'm not talking about money).

And you often have to risk so that others might gain. Or live.

So, life. Is it safe?

No it isn't. Not if you're doing it right.

Take care... but take some worthwhile risks too,
Adrian Zupp

IF YOU FOUND THIS BLOG POST INTERESTING you might like to take a look at SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO ROLL THE DICE.