Take a Chance

"I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come."─Abraham Lincoln

Chance. When I think of chance as a part of human actions it applies poignantly when someone trusts someone else or their ability on purely intuitive assumptions. "I'll take a chance on you" or "there is a good chance your idea will work out" would be two statements that could illustrate actions based on "chance."

Recognizing the "chance" factor is crucial in developing powerful personal characteristics such as self-esteem or personal confidence. The old adage that you can give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day but if you teach a man to fish you will feed him for a lifetime" is in essence, taking a chance. Taking a chance that the person will take what you are offering and use it for betterment. Taking what you offer and planting it's seed to grow into a harvest that can be appreciated down the road.

Chance also goes hand-in-hand with trust. A level of trust needs to often be established before a chance will be granted. We tend to evaluate and judge who will be granted our "chances based on appearances, dispositions,  or other frankly personal preferences. I often think about how it seems to me that it is much easier to trust someone who is similar to me in ways that are applicable to the circumstances. They work in the same area, they have similar economic backgrounds, share my political or religious beliefs. A level of trust needs to be assumed to ask another to take a chance on "Me" as well. Haven't we all experienced those moments where something was offered to us but we were somehow unsure of the intentions behind the offer?

I am glad that people took a chance with me. I think of those moments before I make my decisions about people these days. It makes it far easier to exercise a generous and loving support of my fellow human. Maybe someday you or I will give a chance to someone as great as Mr. Lincoln. I like to think of that as a true possibility.

To Trust

“Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.” -- Arthur Miller

I was contemplating betrayal the other day. It seems to be a consistent presence in our lives. It carries about no discernable pattern to its form. People betray other people, regardless of whether or not they love them. Friends betray friends for all sorts of reasons. Our government betrays our trust for many reasons. We betray our instincts and march headlong into disastrous situations, situations that cost momentous amounts of money and loss of human life and tragic suffering.

What is truly lost through betrayals is trust. Who, what, why are all questionable factors now in putting that one foot in front of the next.

Maybe that is one of the reasons that so many people get such gratifying satisfaction from their pets. They can trust them without the possibility of betrayal. Though even after 13 years I still don’t trust the cat. I still often start blindly down the basement stairs only to almost step on it--lazily stretched out on the steps-- and almost take a possible life-threatening tumble. I believe she has been plotting my demise for a long time. The cat is eerily colored to blend in with the carpet. I am sure my wife didn’t consider that when she picked out the pattern. But I always trusted my dogs.

So I ask myself to keep taking the risk of continuing seeking trust.

It is too energy draining to look behind every act, word and supposition to look for the possible betrayal that may or may not lurk there about.