Taking a Chance: They Key to Happiness in 2016

Take a chance.

It seems like the motto of a gambler, and maybe it is. But, as I’ve learned in the past few years, it’s also the key to finding success and happiness sometimes.

Life is full of risks. Jobs, love, even getting in your car can be risky. There’s the constant fear of failure or rejection, of sorrow or loss.

But I’ve found that sometimes you have to take the chance anyway.

I’ve been blessed these past few years in that I’ve come across people who aren’t afraid to take a chance on me.

This year, two publishing companies took a chance on a nobody in the author world. They were willing to take a look at my words, to ignore the fact that I had zero books to my name. Because of them, I’ve been able to achieve a writing career I once only dreamt about.

The school I work for took a chance on me that first year, a freshly-minted teaching graduate ready to take on the world—or at least the classroom. Although there are certainly tough days—anyone who has ever been around teenagers knows the high school classroom can be, at times, dramatic—I am so thankful for the opportunity to do what I love.

I also have had to take many chances in the past few years.

I took a chance when I wrote both of my books…what if no one ever picked them up? What if no one ever read them?

I took a chance when I got published. What if people hated my work? What if they were epic failures?

I took a chance when I said “I do,” when we signed for our house, when I said okay to a mastiff puppy.

Almost every day, we have the opportunity to take a chance. Sometimes it can end in failure of immense proportions. Sometimes it can alter our life in ways we can’t expect, for better or worse.

But sometimes that chance pays off, and we can’t imagine what we’d be missing if we hadn’t reached for it.

So what chance will you take this year?