The inevitable and personal risk models

There is risk in everything we do and, in everything that happens to us. It is a feature or bug of change. Lately, I have been part of a few real-world discussions that have talked about risk taking, regrets for and against taking them and other associated issues that arrive through life. Is it better to take risks or, play it safe?

Safe is of course a relative term but in nearly all the discussions I have had recently, the people who have played it safe wished they had been more risk taking and, those who risked more heavily, were glad they did. The risk takers didn't all benefit from the risks in fact, some of them paid a heavy toll indeed but, they felt that they are glad they gave whatever endeavor they attempted, a chance.

The thing with the non-risk takers is that they likely over-value the risks that they didn't take and overestimate their chances of being successful. What they are regretting is an illusion because they are looking back in hindsight with a lot more information and saying, "I could have done that". They are right, they could have but, they could have failed and paid a price higher than they are willing to pay also. There is a lot of uncertainty.

This is life, uncertainty. We live via a set of predictor mechanisms that try to find a line through possibility to get us to where we think we want to go. We also have to factor in what we don't know and what we don't know is going to arrive to change circumstances. What some people see as a risky move, others see as a sure thing because of differences in the calibration of their predictive models. What some see as a safe opportunity can be a very risky one for another because of what they must give up to take it.

The only time perhaps when risks are not risks is when one has absolutely nothing to lose, a point where even the potential for death isn't a factor, because nothing is left to risk. This is likely why some people are more risk seeking than others because even if they have what some would consider a lot to lose, they may not be attached to those same things. This means that they can give them up or lose them without feeling the cost.

For many people, they look at the cost to taking risks as the loss of what one has and in general, the more one has, the more protective one becomes of it as they attach themselves more completely. Others, the more they have the more comfortable they feel in taking larger risks as they believe they have a safety net, a fallback position. At the end of the day though, no matter if trying to play it safe or take risks, there are always risks involved and from the discussions I have had recently, those who played it safe tend to struggle just as much (if not more) than those who played with uncertainty.

One thing to remember though is that when judging another's move as risky or not, it is how you see risk, not them.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]