Leave your harbor behind…

July 2, 2021

A quote that I saved a while back inspired me this morning – “A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”  – John A. Shedd

We are all “safe” if we let our fears prevent us from ever venturing out of the harbors that we create for ourselves. It is as if we become mimes, trapped in an imaginary glass box of our own making. It may be a place where we feel safe and comfortable, or a job into which we have settled. Perhaps your harbor involves relationships that feel safe for you. For some it is a location that they seldom venture far from. For most it involves the routines that we fall into and the habits that form over time. It is just easier and safer feeling to continue to do the same old things in the same old places with the same old people around us.

The routines of our lives become harbors that we don’t leave. But that feeling of safety comes at a price – our lives become constricted, and we don’t grow. We let our fear of things new or different set boundaries that we do not cross and prevent us from forming new relationships with people whom we fear to meet. Life can get pretty boring in the little harbors that we create for ourselves.

Another quote that I collected, this one the lyrics from the song “Let it Go” from the movie Frozen, provides inspiration to leave those safe harbors –

“And the fears that once controlled me can’t get to me at all
It’s time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through.”

The essence of Shedd’s quote is that ships were meant to sail the seas and not rest peacefully in harbors. Ships are built to withstand the seas – the tossing waves and blowing winds – just as we are “built” to withstand the tests that life through at us. It is up to us to overcome our fears, to test our limits and break through, by breaking out of our safe harbors.

Think a moment of your life and the routines that you have developed. Have you lived in the same place for 10-20 years or more? Do you always go to the same restaurants or stores? When was the last time that you met someone new or made a new friend? Have you even looked lately to see if another job might be a better fit for you? If you are single, when was the last time that you had a date or even tried to?

As you think about things like that and other things in your life that have become routines (safe harbors) ask yourself why. What is holding you back? What do you fear?  Is there really any basis for those fears?

You may reply, “But, I feel comfortable with my routines, why should I change anything?” The simple answer is that this was not what you were made for that is not the purpose of life. I like this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt – “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

One cannot reach out for new experiences from within their safe harbor. You must leave the safety and comfort of the harbor of your routines and try new things, meet new people, have new experiences. Not to do so is not really to live your life. Perhaps you can pray for the courage to leave your harbor. Maybe knowing that you have God at your side will give you the courage to leave your harbor.

Let the words of Dawna Markova inspire you – “I will not die an unlived life…I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise” Maybe Markova could have said “to loosen my heart until it becomes a ship that sails out of the harbor.”

Leave your harbor behind today and reach out for new experiences do new things, go new places, meet new people.

Bon Voyage!

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Posted by Norm Werner

Break out of convenient…

April 8, 2021

I’ve had this quote from a past post to the Jack’s Wining Words blog rattling around in my saved quotes bin for some time – “Be always restless, unsatisfied, unconforming. Whenever a habit becomes convenient, SMASH IT!”  (Nikos Kazantzakis)

I suspect that was because I couldn’t get comfortable with Kazantzakis’ advice to “SMASH IT.” I’m OK with it if we tone it down just a bit. I think it is good advice to always be a bit restless, to always questions things and to try not to get stuck in ruts of comfort or convenience. In fact, one of the definitions that pop up when you Google “convenient” is this – involving little trouble or effort. Getting comfortable with convenience in life leads inevitably to complacency.Complacency is defined as “a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s achievements”.

It is all too easy in life to become complacent. We often hear it referred to as having routines – things that we just tend to do day-after-day until we wear a rut in life that can sometimes be hard to get out of. There is a danger in becoming stuck in those ruts. I have written here in the past about never stopping the learning process (See my post Don’t Go Through Life Grow Through Life). Acting on your natural curiosity to try to learn the Why’s and How’s of things around us as well as exploring the Who’s that we encounter is what keeps life interesting.

The same can become true of our faith. We can get into complacent habits about prayer or about church attendance. This past year, it has been especially easy to drop into convenient and complacent ruts about church and about our faith. Yet church has gone on through it all and faith was even more important than ever during the inconveniences of the pandemic. Break out of those ruts. Find new ways to put your faith into action. There are countless volunteer organizations in every community who need your help. They don’t care if you are doing it as an act of your faith in action, but you should. The more out of your old comfort zone the better because that takes more faith. Put that T-shirt slogan “God’s Work Our Hands” into action.

So, if your daily habits have turned into convenient and complacent ruts, take Kazantzakis’ advice and smash your way out of them. Don’t end up like a mime in is imaginary glass box. Get out of your comfort zone (it is a rut). Go out of your way to meet new people, go to new places, and have new experiences. Be restless, unsatisfied and unconforming (at least to your own habits) and keep learning. And don’t let complacency rule your faith either. Never be satisfied that you have prayed enough, gone to church enough and done enough. Enough is never enough, even though it may feel convenient.

SMASH your complacent habits and do more!

Break out of convenient!

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Posted by Norm Werner