Certification of Participation Part II: Costs

A few months ago, I painted Life’s Invitation. A few weeks ago, I wrote about participation, about showing up, about saying yes to life, and how somewhere along the way, many of us seem to have become less available to our own lives and to one another.

I still believe every word of it but what I did not write about was the costs of participation. Perhaps because I am only starting to understand it now or perhaps lately, I have simply felt a little exhausted from participating.

Participation sounds wonderful in theory.

Attend the gathering - Take the trip - Start the project - Share the work - Fall in love - Trust again.

But what we rarely talk about is what participation asks of us in return. 

Participation is expensive

To participate is to risk embarrassment; to create work that may never be understood or appreciated.

To participate is to risk rejection; to hear “no,” to be overlooked, or to realise you are not chosen.

To participate is to risk disappointment; when life unfolds differently from what you had hoped.

To participate is to risk heartbreak; to love someone who cannot love you back, or to lose someone you never imagined losing.

To participate is to risk being misunderstood; by friends, by family, or even by yourself.

To participate is to make mistakes; some small, some even irreversible.

To participate is to risk being seen; and in doing so, to discover parts of yourself you were not yet ready to face.

The strange thing is that we often admire people who participate without fully appreciating what they have paid.

• We see the artist, but not the years of self-doubt.

• We see the traveller, but not the loneliness.

• We see the person who loved deeply, but not the heartbreak.

• We see the person who seems fully alive, but not the scars that came with being alive.

Recently, I found myself struggling with this and for the first time, I was not celebrating participation.

I was questioning it

I wondered whether life might be easier from the sidelines and whether some people had discovered a secret I had not.

A quieter life.

A safer life.

A life with fewer mistakes.

But the more I sat with that thought, the more I realised that the sidelines have their costs too.

Safety has a price.

Avoidance has a price.

Distance has a price.

A life carefully protected from disappointment may also be protected from transformation.

The irony is that participation does not guarantee joy.

It does not guarantee connection.

It does not guarantee success.

What it guarantees is experience.

And maybe that is enough.

I find myself less interested in the rewards of participation and more accepting of its costs.

The embarrassment.

The uncertainty.

The heartbreak.

The mistakes.

The vulnerability.

Not because I enjoy them.

But because they seem inseparable from a fully lived life.

Maybe participation was never about winning.

Maybe it was never about getting everything right.

Maybe participation is simply our acceptance to Life’s Invitation to live, knowing that it may change or hurt us in ways we cannot predict. 

Participation asks us to be courageous. 

And although there are days when I wonder whether it would be easier to stop participating altogether, I hope I never become so afraid of being hurt that I stop participating in life.

Perhaps that is why the certificate matters after all.

Not because we succeeded.

Not because we were exceptional.

But because we participated.

Even when it was difficult.

Especially when it was.