July 01st, 2020

Taking a Leap of Faith.  While it's not a literal physical jump, it's still pretty huge.  And we've all done it at least once in our life. Even the most timid among us has, at least one time, taken a chance, a risk, made a decision for which that was no guaranteed outcome.  It's scary!

My sister once gave me that advice when I needed it.  I was long ago.  And after patiently listening to me after I unloaded an entire pile of emotional baggage upon her (poor thing) she told me that sometimes in your life, you just have to close your eyes and jump.  It was great advice.

It might have been when you joined the military or went away to college, or started your first job.   It was possibly your first date, your wedding day  or when you made the decision to geographically move far from everything and everyone you know.

Taking a Leap of Faith means listening to yourself above the words of everyone else in your life.   Knowing deep down in the darkest most cobwebby corners of your heart, your mind and your soul that you are making the right decision for yourself, even if it isn't what others would decide for you.  And more importantly it's knowing that if it turns out that you were wrong, and it was not the correct choice after all,  that you are able to pull yourself up my your socks and figure out what to do from there, on your own without playing the blame game or expecting someone else to haul your butt out of the fire.

It's believing in yourself, trusting your own instincts, going with your gut, as they say.  The faith is having faith in you.  

The earliest explorers did that.  And it didn't always turn out the way they expected (Christopher Columbus, I'm talking to you!).  Every immigrant who came to this country said good bye to everything familiar, sold everything they had and loaded their families onto big ships and saiedl across a scary ocean to start life over in an unfamiliar place. They took a Leap of Faith, that this would be a better life. 

During the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and both World Wars, people held on to the hope and belief that eventually it would all be over and their lives would start anew in a better place and it wasn't easy to be hopeful, it wasn't easy to believe.  The Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, every recession that has occurred since the beginning of this country was defeated and overcome by hope,  belief and leaps of faith.

Every singer, actor, magician who auditions; each painter, author and sculpture who submits their work; every time a person gets out there looking for a new job they are taking a leap of faith that things will get better, it will all work out, it's going to be ok.

​And you know what?  Most of the time, it's true.  Most of the time the results are positive.  I applaud the courage and the bravery of everyone who believes in themselves, who trusts that everything is going to work out, the ones who insist that they have made the right choice in daring to risk it all.  Everyone who has ever taken a Leap of Faith is  heroic in my eyes.

And now here we are, how many months into this virus with no end in sight.  It's easy to get down, to be bummed , to get the blues, the glooms, to be depressed.  But I believe that eventually it will get better.  It will get easier. Things will work out.   Right now I am going to be the one who poo-poo's the apocalyptic naysayers,  I honestly truly sincerely believe that if we are smart, if we make the right choices, if we aren't selfish and stupid about this thing, eventually it's going to be over. I am taking the leap of faith this time, and choosing to believe that if we give it enough time, it's going to be ok.