Thursday, October 2, 2008

Colorless Mediocrity

In my comp classes this week, we discussed an essay entitled “College Pressures” written by William Zinsser. One statement, of many, that stood out to me was “Not taking chances will lead to a life of colorless mediocrity.” Taking chances does not come easy for most people; I know that I am one who does not like to take chances because I am afraid of looking foolish (another statement that I liked was, “One of the few rights that America does not proclaim is the right to fail”). I began to think of times that I have decided to go ahead and take a chance. The biggest chance that I have taken in recent years was going graduate school. If I had not listened to my professors and taken a chance, I never would have ended up in a job that is anything but mediocre. I would have likely continued to work at data entry jobs where the pay is okay, but there is not much of a mental challenge. I told my students this story to encourage them to take chances.

I’m curious to know what chances you have taken or chances that you wish you had taken.

1 comment:

dksnyder said...

Your post tonight has prompted good discussion for me and Don! Neither of us likes to take chances, but one chance we are glad we took was moving to Kansas after we got married. No family, no friends, and it was the lowest salary offer that Don had. But we felt it was where God wanted us and now this is home. Other chances that we are glad we took are with developing friendships with people. Even though it is not our first nature to be outgoing socially, the chances we wish we would have taken are often opportunities to get to know other people. One chance I'm glad we didn't take recently was investing largely in the stock market! :)