I recently read a post on facebook (Exceptional Living by Dennisse Lisseth quoting Brave Girls Club) on the question about ‘willing-ness’. As I thought more about the meaning of the word, the more I thought this is a good question to ask. It’s all very well to talk about being transparent or ‘letting the chips fall where they may’ but exactly how willing are you to move out of your comfort zone? How willing are you to…
Webster defines willing as: “… inclined, ready, disposed” but the second description, to me, is the important part – “prompt to act or respond”. You can be ready to be/do but, in the end, do you? Are you prompt to respond? And yes, it does depend on what the subject is, but what is your typical mo, your predisposition? Are you the hesitant or the ‘boldly go where no man has gone before’ type? What ‘willing to’ is testing you? Because ‘willing to’ is a choice – you don’t have to.
Perhaps ‘willing’ is asking you to let change occur, to try something new? Or is willing asking you to be brave, to trust, to forgive? Perhaps you are being asked to ‘stretch’ yourself – or maybe to begin to view yourself as you are. There are so many ways we are asked, daily, to be willing to view events, ourselves, others in new ways. And it always is a choice, actually a decision to act on willing.
You really can’t be coerced into ‘willing’ because it is a free, eyes open decision. Granted, sometimes willing may not be the preferred response – you’d rather do something ‘else’, but in the final analysis, you do the deciding. Remember though, willing may start intellectually but it is always an action. The action is the proof of your ‘willing to’. And… the unknown may be what you face – are you willing to?
