Elizabeth Keeler: Confessions of a Cliff-Jumper

Elizabeth Keeler grew up on a farm in Raymond, Alberta, the second of eight children.  She holds a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Calgary, and a Masters degree in English Literature from the University of British Columbia.  She spent the last couple of years working as a business communications writer and teacher in Vancouver, BC.  She is currently pursuing her MBA at the Marriott School of Business at BYU.

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I don’t like extreme sports and I secretly despise people who fling themselves off cliffs in the name of leisure.  I take paranoid care of my body—I have only one chicken pox scar after 30 years in a gravitational field.  But, sometimes, when I ponder my life, I think I might be living my own version of insanity—call it “vocational cliff-jumping.”  My secret resume includes things as disparate as “pianist”, “lab chemist”, “dancer”, and “businesswoman.”  (I could throw in some other good ones, like “shoveller of dung” and “door-to-door makeup seller” but, to be fair, those weren’t career moves.)  I am constantly jumping headlong into the deep end of some new professional endeavour.  Let me further damage my credibility: I have moved 20 times to 13 cities in 4 countries in 3 continents attending 6 universities in 10 years.  Peripatetic, you might say.  “Geographic fix-it-itis” my friend’s mom diagnosed.  “You think moving from one thing to another will fix everything.”  I imagine the people speaking at my funeral saying things like: “She was confused.”  Or, “a nice girl, but her internal compass was way off.”

Source:  istockphoto

There is often internal questioning as I embark on yet another life change.  What is wrong with me?  Why can’t I stay put?  Confusion and self-doubt have been a part of every transition.  Last year, as I was contemplating forging ahead with my MBA, the questions started again: When and where will I find my bliss?  This time I got an answer, and it shocked me.   You are living it, the voice came from deep, deep, you know, very deep inside me.  Pause.  Lighted bulb.  With sudden clarity I knew I was living my dream in total perfection: I am a self-decreed explorer.  I envisioned myself wearing a captain’s hat as I steered my lone ship across the tumultuous waters of the Atlantic, a modern-day  John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, or maybe even Columbus.

That sounds cocky.  It is a little.  In my defense, I think my compulsive need to explore is not ego-driven, and I’m pretty sure it’s not because I’m a flake, or because I should see my shrink to work out my commitment issues.  I simply have a strange, primal need to go over boundaries.  I am obsessed with these invisible borders, because they are signposts for what is unrealized.  Beyond boundaries lies the dark unknown, spaces I haven’t conquered; spaces that might conquer me.  Beyond boundaries are new ideas, new creation, the fascination and shock of the hitherto unexperienced.  Rather than walk on lighted circuits, I feel compelled to go to the dark spots and put my flag down.  Call me Captain Elizabeth.  (Indulge me.)

Source:  istockphoto

While I admit there is fear associated with doing something outrageously new, fear is not my greatest deterrent to risk-taking.  My past life as a musician was like a life-time vaccination against fear.  I have yet to do anything as terrifying as play a Bach fugue for Professor Engle, who was known, on occasion, to mime cutting off my head.  I may experience terror frequently, but it’s more like an old, pesky friend.  No, my greatest deterrent, by far, is guilt.  Guilt has accompanied every life change I’ve made.  It’s as if there are voices telling me that changing makes me fickle, weak, or abnormal.  Perhaps it’s the age-old view that incontinence and irrationality are bound up in my femininity.  Changing my mind is weak, a modern-day instance of fainting in my corset.  The proper thing to do is to be still, stable, responsible.  Don’t change, don’t move, be dependable, be who you’ve always been, be found in the same space as before. 

Sometimes guilt is justified, but I have searched my soul about the wrongs of cliff-jumping, and I believe the guilt is ill-founded.  If I had acted in perfect accordance with my inherited social conscience, I would be living in rural Canada celebrating my twelve-year wedding anniversary with my husband, cows, dogs, and kids.  That may be right for some, but it would have been wrong for me, a sure recipe for socially-guilt-free misery.  So what’s the deal with my guilt?  I could expostulate on how women have historically not been risk-takers, positing ill-formed theories of cave women defending their little ones while their husbands were out bush-whacking.  But I don’t really know.  Perhaps there are evolutionary reasons for the guilt of adventure, but one thing is for sure: the flip side of the guilt-coin is stagnation.  To me, that’s the real danger.  I asked Google and it confirmed my suspicions:  

“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. [She] may avoid suffering and sorrow, but [she] simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.”  (Leo Buscaglia)

Source:  istockphoto

So, while I am perplexed by the guilt, ever-present as it is, the Captain in me insists I sail in spite of it.  This week’s expedition was to enroll in the advanced private equity class offered next term.  As a classmate graciously pointed out, it’s laughable how little business I have being there.  However, what I know from being an experienced jumper is that after terror comes exhilaration, and if I’m lucky, ecstasy – the ultimate reward. 

To be clear, I am not promoting that people change jobs every year for the rest of their lives (heaven forbid).  I am merely shamelessly advocating headlong, plummeting, frontier-busting, head-shaking, free-falling adventure, however that looks, because it’s worth it.  I don’t know about you, but I intend to keep up my dirty little habit of cliff-jumping for a very long time, even at the risk of a confusing epitaph on my tombstone.

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Not infrequently I hear it said women are risk-averse.  In one sense I think that's true.  As I looked for photos of cliff jumping women, they were hard to find.  My experience, however, has been that women are actually willing to take pretty big risks.  Like Elizabeth is willing to do.

What is the most thrilling thing you've ever done?  Wasn't there actually a lot of risk involved?

Couldn't you argue that getting married is a pretty risky thing?  And if you happen to be a stay-at-home mother reliant on your husband's income, isn't that taking a risk?  What about birthing a baby? 

For more on exploration, you may want to read Eva Koleva Timothy's Lost in Learning.

Comments

[Michelle Anthony]

Elizabeth,
It's funny, about midway through reading your piece, the motto I try and live by flashed into my mind: live courageously. It seems you are doing just that! The way that mantra plays out in my life is far different than yours, being a self-described hermit/cave dweller. For me, courageous living has involved travelling to a strange city, alone, to find my way to and from the hospitals my brother has been in, trying to fight his fight to stay alive. It has meant being willing to speak up, despite the fear/discomfort in doing so. It has come through in my being willing to keep searching for an agent or a publisher, because I so believe in my work and its importance.

It's a phrase I use with my own children when they worry about stepping outside their prescribed comfort zones to stretch and grow.

Thank you for reminding me how many different ways we can live our dreams courageously, no matter how "different" they may be from what we might have thought, years ago.
Michelle Anthony

[Linda Watkins]

Loved this post. I really relate to it as I also have diverse work experience- going from musician/flutist to businesswoman (in a finance career). I was terrified to study finance in business school, which is exactly why I did it.

I loved when you said, 'Rather than walk on lighted circuits, I feel compelled to go to the dark spots and put my flag down.'

I have a feeling we're kindred spirits.

[Dana King]

Loved your piece. So fun to read. You won't catch me jumping off literal cliffs. But some time around age 40, some time around the time my mother died, I decided life is too short to be fearful. I have to remind myself of this. When I start to feel fear I ask myself, is this appropriate? More often fear is not coming from a rational place.

[Megan Nelson]

Captain Elizabeth, what a wonderful, insightful post! I'm just embarking on my career (in finance), and, as a classically "risk-averse" person, I'm coming to grips with the reality that enjoying the fullness of life at work or elsewhere will require prioritizing challenge over stagnation. Thank you for encouraging me to look at risk from another angle.

(P.S. It's good to hear from a Marriott school "sister"--I'm considering jumping a cliff back to BYU for my MBA in a few years :) )

[Maria]

Wonderful post and comments! I echo Dana's statement about life being too short to be fearful. I want to live life fully and experience much. Sometimes I remind myself that life is a dream we can shape.

[Amy Jo]

What about birthing a baby? That thought hit home ;-). My husband is an explorer. His nickname is Mr. Brown Sign because he fills his need to be out and about not through employment as much as experiencing what the world has to offer and see. Good for you!

[April Perry]

Great article! When I was 12, my older sister challenged me to do one thing each day that I was afraid to do. As I've gotten older, and as my family and business has started to grow, I've been doing something "scary" each hour, it seems. This constant stretching isn't easy or comfortable, but there's something very satisfying about knowing that you're living a full, purposeful life.

"Putting yourself out there" is very risky to most people. Whether you're marketing a product, posting on a blog, "speaking up" on Facebook, or devoting the rest of your life to parenthood, there's always that risk that some critic will try to squash your efforts.

Life is easier if we don't do anything that requires courage, but this quote sums it up for me: "There is no growth in the comfort zone and no comfort in the growth zone."

Thanks for writing this post!

[Lisle]

I love this post! And I think that women really are risk-takers. Not just giving birth (though that was the first thought in my mind when I read that paragraph), but in blazing ahead without any guarantees. How many generations of women have followed their husbands without really knowing what it meant beyond his ability to provide? Sometimes not even having that guarantee? How many have gone out to do something to help their child that they'd never have done for themselves?

Maybe we should make lists of things we've done that seemed easy to us that others might find risky. Could be more jumping than we think.

[Elizabeth Keeler]

Everyone! Thank you so much for your kind posts. There is something about writing that makes you more naked than naked dreams - so thanks for being enthusiastic and supportive. All the comments here are so insightful. I want to continue with every conversation thread .. I am struck by so many things, but the one that sticks out is that perhaps I was wrong about women not being risk-takers. I've never had kids, so I don't usually think about giving birth or raising kids. However, it just occurred to me that of all the people I know, only the women have repeatedly, voluntarily taken a risk that could have meant death. How did I not see it? Amazing! It makes me wonder if women don't actually have a deep reservoir of risk-taking ability that gets tapped into all the time. Huh...I amend my thoughts...we should be the best risk-takers of all...right??? Thanks again - I"m invigorated!

[Carolyn Johnson]

So enjoyed your article Liz!!! Looking forward to seeing you at Christmas!! A chance that Joe might go to BYU - Provo in Jan!!!

[Jennifer Johnson]

What an enjoyable post! The biggest risk I've *yet* taken was to start my own business - an investment firm. I named it Coraticum Asset Management because "coraticum" is the Latin for "courage", as I knew I would need that courage to start and continue such an endeavor. For those of you who know Latin-based languages you can see that embedded in cor-aticum is the idea of the heart ("corazon" / "coeur" / "cuore" are all "heart" in Spanish, French, and Italian). Therefore in the etymological roots for courage there is a sense of (1) things that come from our core/heart, and (2) things that have a moral rightness in them. I liked this context for courage because I am motivated to do hard things, not because they are hard and I want to prove something, but because they involve my inner-core sense of rightness.

The funny thing is that before reading this post I often have explained that, because I manage other people's investments, the courage I'm referencing by the name is that sense of doing what is "difficult-but-right" rather than communicating that I'm willing to jump off a cliff with their money. :) Perhaps after reading the post, I need to pick a new contrasting metaphor...

[Lisa Hardie]

Captain Elizabeth! I am jealous of your MBA! Also, I miss exploring terrible movies like Dance Flick in your fabulously equipped basement suite!

[Bonnie White]

Like so many others, I really loved this perspective you shared. It quite literally blew some much needed wind into my sails.

[Julie Kellett]

Elizabeth- I loved reading about your journey and your current adventure pursing your MBA. I've noticed in my own life that much of my ability to take risks comes from my experience as an athlete and I can imagine your development of courage has been a result of your piano performance experiences. I think this really highlights the point that young women need to be encouraged to try things outside of their comfort zone and so they feel comfortable doing uncomfortable things. Secondly I think it's equally important for all women to find others they admire who have conquered unfamiliar waters and who can help lead the way. I think you have a wealth of experience that you'll be able to share with many around you.

[Kristy Williams]

Elizabeth - how fun to see another Southern Albertan on here! I remember you from high school - I'm an LCIer and lived around the corner from your cousins the Tanners (I was a MacLennan then). As for the real purpose of commenting - I admire your willingness to embrace change. I have a bit of an addiction to change, and have moved at least every 2 years since high school. My challenge now is to accept that at some point I may be in one place for a long time (like 5 years! or more) and I need to find the joy and excitement in that.

[Elizabeth Keeler]

Kristy - great to hear from you! It seems like ages ago - but I remember you easily (memories coming back as I type), not least because we emailed about consulting a few years ago (do you remember?). Thanks for reading and commenting. Good to know there are other change-ophiles out there. I appreciate your sentiments about settling down - that's something I need to work on. Finding the balance between change and putting down roots...something to think about. Anyway, great to hear from you again.

[Mercedes]

so i'm a bit late on the uptake here...and i hate to get all southern alberta on you....but i think we've met!

i'm pretty sure we shared high tea at rutherford house in edmonton probably about ten years ago. irony of ironies, i live in utah now too. i'd love to reconnect and hear about how you went from musican to writer to business student. tres cool. anyway maybe get whitney to forward you my email if you are interested!

ps i just loved your discussion about how you've moved around a lot. i so relate. in fact probably all the females in my family relate. you see, i come from a long line of women who live by the adage: "moving is like shock therapy, it works every time!"

(except when it doesn't....but other are problems for another day).