The Edge

The Edge.

A scary, awesome place.

Rumor has it that people of long ago thought the world was flat. We've all heard this before. Everyone stayed in the safe middle because if you ventured too far you'd go over the edge. That was the prevailing philosophy of the day and it was truth. Until someone proved it false, that is.

Thinking outside the box.

A popular term meaning to do something unexpectedly brilliant that produces inspired innovation, heroic ideas, and celebratory parades. Or something like that. But can we really just think outside the box?

It didn't take thinking to discover that the world was round and not flat and that you would indeed live if you sailed past the horizon. Someone actually had to go discover it. They had to do something. They had to risk their very life and limb to sail right up to the edge and look into the supposed chasm of death.

Except that there wasn't any such chasm. There never was. And yet, from what we know, an entire global population was held captive to the middle, to what they knew. They were imprisoned by their own ideas.

And the same thing holds true today. We live in the middle because its safe. We dare not venture past where we can see because we assume there is a chasm of death eagerly waiting to swallow us up. We play it safe in our own backyards and so we ultimately play it small.

We risk nothing and gain the same. The people that you and I admire have stepped out of their own yards and are consciously and continuously moving toward the edge. This isn't to say that they don't have doubts and that sinking feeling in the pits of their stomachs at what could happen - but they don't stop.

Why then should we?