Safe makes you good, but chances…taking chances really makes you into something great.

I’ve seen that note on my cork board for months and months, through the passing of dreams, the coming and going of many things and the arrival of the callings I have come to answer.

And then I stare at those hawk feathers that were dropped on my path during the week before I finished writing a chapter of my life that lasted 15 years.

I’ve been growing wings.

Wings that were clipped years and years ago.

Clipped by circumstances and a punishing world.

But somehow almost 5 years ago I answered a call to start doing all of this and grew my wings back. I’ve done many things over the years but never quite flew on my own. I realize now, in hearing the night call out the next chapter of my life, exactly what I am supposed to do.

It’s scary to think about some of the things I am about to do.

But in sitting here tonight, it’s not really about that at all.

This is about taking chances.

Chances that are rooted in something far beyond your intellectual capabilities and reasoning. Tonight is about answering your heart’s calling.

Strangely enough, through the backend of this year, my heart has been requesting me to do all sorts of things. As confusing as some of these requests have been (and painful at times) I have not been led astray…but rather had more and more of my path revealed to me.

It’s not accident that I have spent most of my time lately tuning into what’s going on inside of me and tuning everything else out.

Distractions have been at a minimum and while it is difficult to sit with everything that is going on at times, I have stuck with it and answers have bubbled up from the surface.

Comfort zones are toxic.

If you’re not growing, if you’re not moving, if you’re not heading on the path you were designed to travel…

Stagnation will cause all sorts of problems for you.

This has shown itself to be true in my life time after time and I know that when I start feeling restless it isn’t because I’m not “moving” but because I’m not doing what I know is right for me.

It’s a personal gauge…

And sometimes that gauge manifests itself in all sorts of painful ways.

It was uncomfortable for me to step away from writing here and to put down the paper. I had many things to say but I somehow knew it wasn’t time to write any of it down. The things I wanted to write down weren’t finished thoughts and I struggled to allow them to find their completion.

Instead, I scribbled page after page of personal stories, letters, and memories down in my journal and saw all of the spaces fill up.

And yet…

I knew that these spaces…these memories…these things written down…inked for eternity…

Had to go.

I wrote my final piece…

Poured gasoline on that notebook…

And tossed a match and watched it burn to a crisp.

Thousands of words sent straight into the sky in a cloud of smoke.

As I watched those pages burn…something inside me lifted. Something inside me freed up.

A new beginning.

The ability to take a big risk and leave everything behind me…a little bit better than I found it.

And to do something for me…the answering of a heart’s desire.

To take care of myself.

To plant roots where I have always wanted to.

And to use the wings I’ve been building for years.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project