“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Clarice Lispector used the occasion of New Year's Day, 1968 to remind an adoring Brazilian public that "salvation is achieved by taking risks, without which life is worthless." I plan to stop pretending she's wrong.
I plan to release lingering assumptions about myself, about the way the world works, about the look and feel of success. I plan to be sloppy. To fail (often), to be generous with love (more often), to find peace in uncertainty and disquiet in injustice. I plan to replace the "disquiet" in that last sentence with outrage and purpose.
I plan to overwhelm fear with faith.
I plan to surprise my body with the amount of laughter it has to sustain, to own my WASPy taste for Chardonnay and racket sports.
Clarice, I plan to agree with you: I will not just find hope and possibility. I will find salvation.
— Anne Morriss