Year Two, Skill #26: Leave Normal and Take a Risk

Country-folk duo, Steel Blossoms, played a house concert here in Columbia Sunday night. Sara Zebley and Haley Prosser have quite a story to tell, not only about how they met but about their big decision to “leave normal” and head to Nashville to try and launch their singer-songwriter careers. Former teachers, they write about “wasting their teaching degrees” in order to take this big risk and follow their hearts. Their success has been remarkable, and these two twenty-somethings are inspirational. When I left the concert I spent the drive home thinking about the big risks I had taken in my life. I want to tell you about four times I took a risk and “left normal”.

Leave Normal.

When I was just 16 years old I decided to graduate early from high school on Long Island, NY, and head to Furman University in Greenville, SC. I went alone, barely 17 years old when I got there. Honestly, I did not think very deeply about it. It felt like the right thing to do at the time, my parent’s supported my decision, and I just did it. Looking back, it has seemed a bit impulsive. I was a Yankee, Lutheran, budding feminist. Why was I choosing a Southern, Southern Baptist, conservative school?  Why was I willing to leave normal? 

ComfortZoneMagicIn my junior year at Furman, I was called into the provost’s office. Scared, and wondering what I had done, (It was 1976 and I had gone out on a “coffee date” with one of the black students.  I wondered if I was going to be “cautioned” about this) then Provost John Crabtree greeted me warmly and asked me to leave Furman for a semester and go to Japan. “Why me?” I asked. “Because you have adjusted so well to being here in the South and to this conservative setting without giving up who you are, that the faculty brought your name up as a good candidate to do another cross-cultural experiment. We would really like you to go.”  I went. Mostly I just followed my gut. I asked my parents. They agreed (hesitantly, this time), and I left for 5 months in Japan. I knew it was a risk, I knew I was “leaving normal”, and yet I was quite excited about meeting “the Other” and experiencing another culture. Although two other students also went, we rarely saw each other and had no professor with us. My time in Japan was life-changing. Leaving normal is necessary if you want to grow and be changed.

Those two risks pale in comparison to two others that came to my mind Sunday evening. The first of these riskier ones was leaving my career in the public schools, both as a teacher and as a counselor, to go into the private practice of psychotherapy. courageWhen I left the schools, which I loved and believed in deeply, I was not only giving up my salary. I was losing my health insurance, my state retirement, and all that I had known as a career. I was a dedicated and respected educator and had already won several awards even though I was only 32 years old when I left. This decision I grappled with more than the two above. Money and security were involved. Future career was involved. Security, especially financial security, was and still is important to me. And yet, in my gut I knew it was time to “leave normal” and follow this nudge that had been inside of me.  I was scared when I left. It took courage to not sign that contract. The first year out of the schools I made a whopping $9800. I remember scraping the floor board of the car to find change to buy milk one night. But it never felt like the wrong decision even though it  wasn’t easy starting a private practice. I worked as hard as I could for years. Now I can honestly say that was one of the best risks ever taken in my life.  I would have more money and better insurance and retirement had I stayed, and yet I believe in my heart of hearts that this was the path for me. I often say, “I know I am exactly where I am suppose to be.” I would not be here had I not “left normal” and taken this risk.

Leaving normal is necessary if you want to grow and be changed. Click To Tweet

Probably the biggest risk I ever took was to call my marriage on the carpet in 1989 and take a stand. I wanted a better marriage. And I was willing to take whatever risk was necessary to get one. My husband and I separated for nearly a year. I was that serious. It was one of the hardest years of my life, and I believe we owe our lasting marriage to that very risk that we took. Not satisfied with the status quo, I wanted something better. Something life giving and soulful, something challenging and deep. Sometimes I wish we could have gotten there another way. Other times I know it was exactly that risk that got us there. We had definitely “left normal” and were machete-ing a new path. You can’t change things and stay the same at the same time. You have to leave normal.

You can’t change things and stay the same at the same time. You have to leave normal.

There is plenty of research on people who are risk averse and those who are risk takers. But there is an important distinction I want to make here. I am not a sensation-seeker, which is what people often think of when we talk about risk-takers. I do not drink and drive, I don’t gamble or sleep around, I don’t take drugs or bungee-jump. But I do follow my gut, I spend time in prayerful discernment,  and I am willing to step out of “normal” and trust that God is leading me exactly where I am to go. That is what risk-taking is to me. But leaving normal does not always mean success. It means you are willing to take that risk and willing to experience the consequences of that decision. I suppose you could also just call it stepping out in faith.

Sometimes risk is inevitable in a decision we will make. No matter which way we decide, there will be riskrish involved. The recent campaign season and election is an example of that. There are many who thought it was a bigger risk to elect a life-time politician… a female, ethically questionable politician… than to elect a shady business man who is unafraid to tell you how many different kinds of people he hates and shames. As a country, this entire election season “left normal” and we are now in uncharted territory, and every way out is a risk. Honestly, for me, we left normal on 9/11 and have been trying to paradoxically leave normal and not leave normal all at the same time. We have been in uncharted territory for 15 years now. So what do we do when we are in the uncharted territory of “leaving normal”?  Here’s what I learned in the four life experiences mentioned above.

Be as present as possible, wherever you are. Listen and talk with people who are not like you…intentionally speak with the “other”.  Breathe deeply. Pray often. When you are ready, move forward with conviction. Buckle down and work really hard. Look for new opportunities to make a difference, to learn new things, to call on the carpet those things which no longer serve you. Set your sights on new possibilities. Surround yourselves with those who love and support you.

Leaving normal is never easy or uncomplicated. It can be scary as hell. It is just necessary if we want to be different. Thank you, Sara Zebley and Haley Prosser, Steel Blossoms that you are, for reminding me that if life is to be marvelous,  leaving normal is important no matter how old you are!

Leaving normal is never easy or uncomplicated.

Amy

 

 

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