Risk

S and I were on a short trip last month. We had taken the day off and the boys were still in school. Passenger time, for me, is knitting time. As we talked, I noticed that my simple pattern had a mistake a few rows back. Fixing knitting mistakes involves one of two techniques. One can either tink (knit backwards, get it?). This is a cafeful, slow way to go because it involves unknitting each stitch. The other technique is frogging (to frog is to rippit, rippit, get it?). Frogging involves risk -- all of the "live" or active stitches are pulled off the needle, and the knitting is "unzipped" by pulling on the yarn and yanking out the stitches. Unfortunately, the stitches are also able to drop (think of a runner in hose) down the fabric of their own accord. Once the frogging is done, each stitch has to be picked up on the needle before it can escape.

Not wanting to take the time to tink (in other words, I didn't have the patience to work one stitch at a time), I yanked out the needle and ripped out about four rows -- 57 stitches x 4 =228. S, shocked, said, "What are you doing?"

"It had a mistake that had to be fixed. Sometimes you just have to be bold, and take a risk."

Next analogy -- I was watching G on his skateboard yesterday. He was doing some kind of trick -- don't ask me to explain it -- but I noticed to do it he had to allow himself to become out of balance on the board, and then he had to regain his balance to finish the "trick." Without the loss of balance, there is no trick.

It reminds me of a line from Toy Story. Woody tells Buzz Lightyear after Buzz demonstrates his flying technique, "That wasn't flying. That was falling...with style."

Think of the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-28). A man is going on a journey, and he gives talents to his servants. The servants who received 5 or 2 talents risked the money and made more for their master. The servant who had received 1 talent buried what had been entrusted to him, risking nothing, but gaining nothing. He did not win the favor of his master.

I've always felt sorry for the 1-talent servant. He's afraid of the reaction of his master if he looses the money, and his fear prevents him from risking anything.

Doesn't that happen in life all the time? I know that I am often afraid of risk. What are synonyms for risk?

• change
• new
• unplanned
• different
• uncomfortable
• challenging

There are more, I'm sure.

But just like with G's skateboarding, without the time of unbalance, without the risk, there is no trick. Without the risk, we stay where we are, stagnant, unchanging, and with no gain for the master.

Sometimes you just have to "let her rip."