Our awareness has been stretched wider than ever in history, but often at the cost of taking away a lifetime of experiences.*
(Seth Godin)

life is risk**
(Anne Dufourmantelle)

In life there is general risk and there is specific risk.

The general can come to us anywhere and at anytime. Specific risk comes through our particular pursuits of purpose and meaning.

Sometimes these merge, as they did for Anne Dufourmantelle in 2017. Seeing two children in difficulty in the water off a St Tropez beach, Dufourmantelle rushed to their aid but drowned in her effort.

Dufourmantelle’s story is a powerful one of a person reaching beyond belief and feeling into actioning, or, as Ryan Holiday would shape these: Mind, Spirit and Body. Holiday tells Dufourmantelle’s story in his section on Body – skin in the game as Nassim Taleb would call it.

The philosopher had written a book entitled In Praise of Risk and I’ve added another of her books to my wishlist: Power of Gentleness: Meditations on the Risk of Living.

Dufourmantelle’s example is both challenging and inspiring for me; I am reminded of the third elemental truth:

Your life is not about you.^^

(*From Seth Godin’s blog: Awareness vs. experience.)
(**Anne Dufourmantelle, quoted in Ryan Holiday’s Stillness is the Key.)
(^From Richard Rohr’s Adam’s Return.)