Would You Risk It?

Risk & Security

Security is expensive. Risk is expensive. It is in the right balance between the two that a right life emerges.

Too much security diminishes life. You need only observe wild animals in the security of a zoo, or couch potatoes who have more of everything than they need. A risk-free environment (physically, mentally, or emotionally) promotes apathy and atrophy.

Too little security is like too little predictability. It is the source of angst and anguish. If you don’t know where your next meal is coming from, your sense of self and of an orderly world suffer. You become disoriented.

People whose lives are actually at risk – firefighters, mountain-climbers, sky divers, combat pilots, and soldiers – report that they never felt more alive than during the most live-or-die moments. Even people whose medical prognosis is imminent death seem to come more alive.

When you have too much security, you no longer contemplate the consequences of what you are doing but only the means of doing so.

Doing Life as you would have it done involves risks.  If you don’t know what those risks are, you may fail — or, far worse, you may give up.

–Lee Thayer, Thought-Leader