Risks

as i look around i see many people. i see people laughing. father and son throw lacrosse balls back and forth, mothers walk with their baby in their arms. i see a father helping his daughter to ride her tricycle, even though she continually veers left into the grass. she falls over on her third venture into the grassy abyss and her father rushes to her side and picks her up and stops her tears. friends are out telling stories and sharing laughter. a little girl and her parents walked by and the girl greeted me and proceeded to ask me how i was doing. a couple sits on a bench and they're all smiles. as the breeze drifts through the trees, the leaves fall and it also leaves goosebumps on my skin.
things like this make me smile.
they just simply make me happy, maybe for a brief moment, but watching others experience happiness and love is awesome.

 happiness can come in so many different forms: spending time with God and worshiping Him, driving down the road with the windows rolled down, feeling the breeze mess up your hair and the music matching the way you feel perfectly, winning trivial pursuit and having bragging rights for the night, watching your favorite football team with your best friends, the moment when you realize just how important your family is and falling in love when you least expect to.

 but the sun makes it's descent and hides behind the horizon and reminds me that with this happiness comes sadness. 

feelings completely lost and confused and struggling with your relationship with God and putting up a wall, making it hard for anyone to get to know you.
getting into a car crash, never wanting to drive again.
not knowing a single trivial fact and miserably losing the game, feeling completely stupid
the feeling after the end of the 4th quarter when the team you had been rooting for loses the game because an interception in the last minute
losing your mom to cancer and the world suddenly stops and everyone else around you is continuing with their lives and you're screaming, but not a single person can hear you. 
having loved someone and then it's gone, leaving you with a huge gaping hole, making it hard to trust again. 

 but trying to avoid the sadness is missing out on the happiness. you lose, the lessons are never learned. getting close to someone is fully setting yourself up to fall, but trusting them to not let you fall or catch you when you do is how it should be.

although you risk sadness, without taking the chance, without that leap of faith, you would have never have found some of the greatest happinesses in the world. life has it's ups and downs. it is not fair.

but don't let the fear of crashing keep you from driving.

the fear of feeling stupid keep you from trying

the fear of losing from playing

the fear of death from creating life

and don't let the fear of being alone keep you from loving. 

there are so many things to learn.

what's the point of life if you're too scared to live it?