Risk, baby.

WOTW [word-of-the-week]

risk. noun.
1. possibility of loss or injury: peril.
2. something or someone that creates or suggests a hazard.
3. a : the chance of loss or the perils to the subject matter of an insurance contract; also : the degree of probability of such loss b : a person or thing that is a specified hazard to an insurer c : an insurance hazard from a specified cause or source
4 : the chance that an investment (as a stock or commodity) will lose value
[www.webster.com]

"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it." ~Pablo Picasso

"I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I'm not afraid of falling into my inkpot." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down." ~Ray Bradbury

“You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.” ~Paulo Coelho

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." ~Mark Twain

“Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.” ~Paulo Coelho

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous hand." ~Isaiah 41:10

Reflections, Paulo Coelho, and GQ

Again - ding dong, the strike is dead. Everyone's slowly emerging from their 'cautious optimism,' that things are gradually picking up.

So just some personal thoughts, since they're on the brain. The agony of career-debating and related quarterlife questions and those all-important 'transitional' periods in life continues.

After spending much of the past couple of weeks, I mean months (MONTHS!), interviewing, temping, actually cooking at home, contemplating other jobs (and less lofty aspirations), and becoming buddy-buddy with sites Defamer and 100 Days in Bed, I've had some time on my hands. To blog. To reflect. To reevaluate everything I've ever known in life. Fun, I know.

Consider other industries, possibilities, American coastal cities. I would have to say my greatest success is having survived the last several months of my own life. (Take that, cookie-cutter job interviewers!) A roller coaster of emotion, these twentysomething years. Considering all those years I've spent studying, writing, showing up prepared.

So I'm widening my horizons. My passion is film and television, my creative juice is good writing. The tools that I use and search for are wit, thoughtfulness, and brutal honesty. But it is possible that life will lead me to other places - my life in the grand scheme of things, is just one life. Wow - am I just another hack? Okay, I'll just go wherever God takes me. The only problem with having a Judy Blume moment when it's not as a kid, is that it's not as easily dismissed. Oh, character building experiences of your twenties. If only I could somehow include the aforementioned on my resume...

"We who fight for our dream suffer far more when it doesn't work out, because we cannot fall back on the old excuse: 'Oh, well, I didn't really want it anyway.' We do want it and know that we have staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is not easier than any other path, except that our whole heart is in this journey." Oh, Paulo Coelho. Do you have any idea what you've done?

COTW

This week, it's whatever Cecil Donahue was having when writing about job interviews in GQ's February 2008 issue.