Last week, I went on 5-day field trip to St. Louis, Missouri, with my oldest daughter’s school choir. I had the pleasure of chaperoning high-school students. I spent most of my time with a little group of juniors and seniors. One of our stops was at the St. Louis Zoo, which is quite large and extraordinary. The kids were excited to see a polar bear and penguins and gorillas; however, they kept talking about how sad it was to see the animals in their faux habitats. One student even lingered alone at the gorilla enclosure, and upon returning to the group, remarked about how upsetting it was to see them locked up.

I shared with my husband about the trip and the zoo and how the teenagers were somewhat saddened by the realization that the animals would never again be in their natural homes. He remarked, “They’re safer at the zoo than they are in the wild.” Ah. True. However, safe and free are two different things.

I’m pretty sure most people desire and cherish freedom. I don’t know of anyone who would prefer not to be free. Yet, most of us live our lives in such a way that we prioritize safety over freedom. We work long hours at jobs we hate so we can have a retirement fund. We get every app and gadget and insurance we can afford in order to keep our homes and cars and accounts safe. We avoid neighborhoods where we think we might be harmed. We stay away from people we think might hurt us. We stand in long security lines when we travel. We put nets around our trampolines. We take every precaution we can think of in every instance of our lives in an effort to be safe.

We’ve been conditioned to be practical and smart and level headed. We’ve been taught since childhood to stay away from strangers. We’ve learned to be scared, and those who’ve taught us are filling their pockets with profits.

And we’re mostly miserable.

What we really want to be is free. We want to dance like fools. We want to jump without the net. We want to ride without a helmet. We want to feel the wind in our hair. We want to worry less about money and let passion have its way. We want to walk away from the jobs we hate and do the thing we love. We want to talk to our neighbors and make new friends. We want to fall in love. We want to take risks. We want to sell the house and travel the world.

But we’re afraid.

Fear will never make us happy. And living scared makes life mundane, at best.

I wonder how many of our missing smiles might return if we were a little reckless and risky every once in a while.