The Risk of Choosing Yourself — and Why It’s Worth It

What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to?

(Inspired by my book About Life, Choices, and Potholes)

If you asked me five years ago what my biggest dream was, I would’ve probably said something practical — to climb the career ladder, to live in a beautiful home, to check off a few more countries from my travel bucket list. But if you ask me today what the biggest risk I’d like to take is — it’s far less tangible and far more terrifying.

It’s the risk of choosing myself.

Sounds simple, right? But it’s not.

Choosing yourself means walking away from what doesn’t serve you — even when it once did. It means saying no to jobs that drain you, to relationships that no longer see you, and to the version of yourself you’ve outgrown. It means rebuilding your life from scratch — not because something broke, but because you finally realized you deserve something truer.

In About Life, Choices, and Potholes, I write about this very moment — that terrifying pause between knowing something isn’t right and daring to change it. I talk about how we stay in safe, predictable loops: the job that looks good on paper, the city that feels like home but treats us like guests, the people who like the version of us that never says no.

But what if safety isn’t the goal?

The biggest risk isn’t quitting or leaving — it’s believing that there’s more to your story, even when you can’t see how it ends. I learned that when I packed my life into two suitcases after years in the U.S., forced to start again because of a visa technicality. It wasn’t my choice, but it made me realize how many choices I had avoided making.

I used to think that control equaled safety. But sometimes life pushes you off the edge to show you how well you can fly.

So maybe the risk I haven’t yet taken — but hope to, every day — is living unapologetically by my own design. Not out of rebellion, but reverence. For the quiet knowing that whispers, “This isn’t the end — it’s your next beginning.”

And if About Life, Choices, and Potholes teaches you anything, I hope it’s this — the road might be bumpy, but it’s yours. And that makes all the difference.