A ticking clock

‘I was a fugitive, taking risks with my life. I chose that.’ (Abbie Hoffman)

Sometimes you have to just do it, bite the proverbial bullet and take a leap of faith. If you wait until all your ducks line up neatly in a row, you may miss the moment, miss an opportunity – or miss your life. This is a recurring theme that comes up in coaching conversations. How to move forward when the landscape is ambiguous or unclear? How to take a step into the future if you can’t foresee all the potential consequences? How to snap yourself out of procrastinating, a paralysis of analysis or an anxiety-driven need for control?

In that vein, I watched Cabrini this week, the life story of a radical Italian nun who felt called by God to make a tangible difference in the lives of the poor. When challenged on her breath-taking plans and stark lack of related resources, the movie has Frances Cabrini saying: ‘Begin the mission and the means will come.’ Her attitude and actions were based on a grounded faith that God would provide for what was needed, and on an activist stance that meant taking the first step rather than waiting. (She was a lot like Jasmin in the Philippines).

This assumes, of course, a sense of purpose, calling or mission. Clients are often unclear what that could be in their lives yet nevertheless experience a deep, existential sense of discontent, dissonance or yearning. It’s as if they have an intuitive sense of someone or something calling from within or beyond yet can't pin it down to a specific focus, stance or direction. Or, perhaps in some ways harder still, they are clear yet struggle to muster up the courage to do it. A clock is ticking. ‘Human life must be risked if it is to be won.’ (Jürgen Moltmann)