Living is a ‘give and take’ experience. It is possible to approach your life as ‘taking’ only, living life as if you were in an amusement park, choosing what is easy and entertaining and leaving the problems to others. That is, until life confronts you with what is impossible to pass on to others—like getting fired or losing a loved one, for instance.
Likewise, you can look at life as a task. You can tire yourself out by working hard and by buying everything that you want, until you experience a new set of emotions that snap you out of the cycle—for example, the experience of your firstborn child, given to you 'for nothing.’
Two sides of the same coin?
Once you realise how much is given to you 'for nothing', and you understand that you have received so much without putting any effort into it, and that you—with your talents and possibilities—are able to do something about it, this insight is an invitation to give a strictly personal answer to life.
It is not a question of what society can do for you anymore, but about what I can do for society. Once I am conscious about the talents that have been given to me and I am driven by a moral call with principles to which I stick, I can make a unique and real contribution to the world.
What exactly is ‘taking a risk’ then?
When you use your unique gifts to create a better world, if everything you do is at your own risk and responsibility, without expecting the approval of others and without knowing the end result.
In "More than any human can do" Ton Lathouwers says:
"Because you are unique, a human like no other before you and never will be again. What you feel deep inside yourself, irresistible, undeniable, in silence, in loneliness, in your heart. In your original face, against all odds. It is about that seemingly very small step- which in reality is an immeasurable one - without any guarantee."
