Dec 29
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919)
Ziva David was prepared to take risks. Whether in her personal life or professional one, she had learnt that taking risks was the best way to get what she wanted.
As a Mossad Officer, taking risks had gone with the job. Her task was to ensure the safety of her country, no matter what it took. If she had had to lay down her life, she would have done so without a second thought. If she had to leap out of a window, she did. If she had to abseil down a sheer cliff-face in the pitch black, without a safety harness and with a torrential rainstorm pounding against her, she did.
Risk was necessary in order to make something succeed. Small things could succeed without risk needing to be taken, but anything big required a gamble. A gamble she was prepared to make.
She took risks in her personal life too, although that had been more recent. Coming to America had been a risk. Allowing herself to make friends carried risks – would they betray her? Would they leave her? Would they break her heart?
But the bigger the risk, the greater the payoff. She was prepared to risk opening her heart, aware of the joys it would bring her if it all worked out, but she was also acutely aware of how badly it could backfire.
