The world is too big to play it safe

“I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward.” David Livingstone

 

IT WAS A CHANCE encounter. Or a divine connection. Who knows? This past week, a young man from the Caribbean sat in my office. He was only 20 years old and still in University in the United States. What brought him here? He told me he had already interned for three months in Beijing, China. Then he saved up and made a trip to Kenya, to meet new people, see new things and learn new things before heading back to college.

Ah, a millennial explorer. We talked about media, entrepreneurship, faith and food. When he left, I wondered what that meeting was all about. He hadn’t come looking for a job. No, he came, he said, because he was curious. That got me thinking. Where had my curiosity taken me? Where has it taken you?

Consider this. The instinct for survival is so primal that a new-born does not have to learn it. And when we grow older, we continue to do what we must to survive. Usually, this translates to playing safe. We choose careers based on whether or not we can get a job. We marry from our race or tribe because that is what we are told gives us the best chances of marital survival. We eat the same type of food we ate as children.

We form relationships with people who are like us. Truth be told, millions of us wake up every morning doing one thing. Trying to survive the day, the weather, the traffic, our mad bosses or the tough economic times. When someone asks how we are doing, we truthfully answer, “Just surviving man!” Even when we are having a great day or year.

Back to the millennial from Jamaica. He may not have known it but he had been sent to deliver a powerful message. Don’t just survive, thrive. And do it with every bit of your being. I asked him how many of his friends were doing what he had done. How many had travelled to two other continents and found themselves jobs while still in university.

BE CURIOUS

He admitted that most of his friends, many more privileged than he was, were surprised by his “luck”. Yet here he was, despite his background, despite the travel advisories, despite the peer pressure to be on some beach somewhere having fun.

He understood something I had allowed myself to forget. He understood that if you really want to live, you cannot play it safe. He understood that the world was too big to live in a bubble.

Our ancestors led by example when they left comfortable lands and came up north or south in the early migrations. In those days, there was no radio or TV to paint a picture of where they were going.

They just packed everything they owned and walked in search of water, pasture and a better life. They may have been trying to survive, but they were also bold and curious. And not all their kinsmen came with them.

The cultural and architectural history of the East African coast tells the story of other world seekers of Chinese, Portuguese, Arabs and English origin. They too came for a myriad of reasons including trade. David Livingstone went in search of the source of the Nile and to spread Christianity. Then there’s British Adventurer George Mallory who attempted to climb Mount Everest in the early 1920s.

Everywhere he went, reporters wanted to understand his fascination with the mountain. Why attempt to climb Mount Everest? Mallory always gave an answer which has become something of a cliché: “Because it’s there.”

He later went on to explain his flippant remark in an interview in the New York Times of 1923. He said, “Everest is the highest mountain in the world, and no man has reached its summit. Its existence is a challenge. The answer is instinctive, a part, I suppose, of man’s desire to conquer the universe.”

The world is vast, magnificent and breath-taking. Why play safe? This year be curious. Do new things, eat different food, listen to different music and meet new people. Explore your world. Why? Because you can. Because it’s there.