On risk
Calculation strategies for when you are under fire
Like many people, I used to have a really hard time taking risks.
I used to not know how to take risks. I was afraid to risk anything, and it kept me in a state in which I was permanently, frozen in place. Being an accused sex offender totally fixed that however, because when you are falsely accused of a sex crime, and the gangstalkers setting you up are also threatening to kill you and your mother, there was no greater hopelessness than being stuck in place.
When I grew up, it always felt like there was a documentary playing about a mountain climbing disaster where someone was trying to summit and they ended up falling into a crevasse- or worse.
Our society nowadays is full of messages reminding us to be careful what we say, and of course to be careful what we do. But unmentioned are the consequences of not saying and not doing the things that really matter, and the direction our communities slide - and the world slides - when we surrender to fear without thinking about what really matters.
I think everybody knows this on a certain level - but without the right mindset, they end up letting themselves down. Everybody has an intuitive sense of when authority is being misused, or when someone is trying to compel them to do something without legitimacy, but for some reason they find their actions don’t honor their intentions.
Risk is a hard subject because even talking about it is a risk. Hi lawyers ;)
But guess what, society these days is soaked in fear. Fear is a thing I know a few things about, having had to deal with all kinds of bad and very dangerous people for the duration of my adult life. Part of dealing with any persistent problem in life usually involves some kind of risk. But how do you know what risks to take? I want to give you my playbook, not because it is perfect, or that I am perfect, but because I do think it will help.
Worthless risks
Clearly some risks are good risks and some are bad. Bike riding without a helmet is a basket example of a bad risk. If you fall, you can get a concussion and damage your brain which is the most important asset anyone has. And what do you get for it? You get to ride around with the wind your hair, which can be kind of nice, but is it worth the potential consequence?
Fear is information because life is precious
Fear is there to force you to ask, what is the situation and what does this mean?
I am not fearless, I feel fear all the time. Fear is information you don’t want to live without. Fearlessness is not a virtue, it is a vice.
It is better to be someone who acts in the face of fear, and only takes your life into your hands if you assess it to be truly important, meaningful and unavoidable. If you take your life into your hands you should do it as a caring, empathetic person, who has assessed the situation thoroughly and is interested in both your own welfare as well as that of other people, because then you are putting it in the hands of someone who truly cares.
Like most sane, healthy people I do not like gambling with my life, and neither should you.
Your value system
My opinion is that you should aim for the highest possible good with your life, and to really do your homework so that you understand what that highest possible good is. This idea comes from the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, whose work I hold in extremely high esteem. He showed me how important this is, at a time in my life where it could not have been more critical.
You should see the task of defining your ideals and aligning your choices accordingly as a hard task, because that is what it is. Our present time is all at once dangerous and complex, with not much in the ways of certainty. And that is before you consider how the choices you make in this environment will be perceived by other people.
The good news is that America is a vast and wonderful marketplace of ideas. Even within belief systems there is diversity of thought. But you need to find something that really challenges you, and gives you and your choices the tough love that they need to get better. That doesn’t mean the news will always be bad, but you need a belief system and a group of people that are ready to deliver you the bad news so that you know when you need to adjust.
There is a certain ethic of radical and unconditional self-love within our culture that takes many forms but in the end is very dangerous for a person as well as the people and the community around them. The mistakes you make on this path can be hard to come back from, and waking up when you’re on this path seems to be even harder because its adherents have to admit fault AND surrender their worldview AND their coping mechanism.
You need to go in a different direction. Find a belief system that gives you a sense of what matters and start with a foundation of faith that you are a good person, who can offer the world something, even if you don’t totally understand what that ‘something’ is. And that ‘something’ may change over time, because the world is fluid.
You can try to invent your own belief system, but it’s a lot like trying to build the space shuttle all by yourself, and if you crash, you can harm more than just yourself. But if you can fly your vehicle of faith and meaning somewhere, who knows how many lives you can lift. People throw around the word ‘impossible’ as if what is possible is even knowable by mortals like you and I.
With G-d anything is possible. And yes, I have my own foundation which comes from my opinions, but right now I am making the choice that the most important thing I can do for you, rather than evangelize, is just to get you started seeking.
Someone may disagree with this choice, and that is okay. Maybe from that discussion I might learn something.
Foundational clarity
From this homework, you gain what I call ‘foundational clarity’, which is my term for one’s understanding of their life, their story, their situation, and their purpose. Even better than pointing you in the right direction, it will tell you what you should aim for. The word origin for sin comes from a very, very old term that refers to when an archer misses their target. My sense of foundational clarity tells me where the target is and structures my actions, because now I’m thinking about what I will need to do to hit the target, and what I should be willing to wager to make the mark.
Your sense of foundational clarity helps you solve a lot of other problems, too. It is the basis for building a justified belief in yourself, because it gives you a sense of how to judge yourself. If you see problems - and you should always see something you should improve - then the answer is not self-loathing, self-soothing, or self-care - but training and study, ideally with other people.
Focus on the journey, rather than where you are in the context of the skill relative to other people. I am the least literate of anyone in my house of worship. I am also the slowest person in my running group. I don’t care. What matters is that every day I hit the road of life with everything I have, doing the things that I think are the most important, and improving at those things a little each day.
False leads
Taking risks simply because you think people will approve of it.
The judgement of other people who know you and want the best for you is very helpful, but that is a small subset of all people. The community’s judgement can help guide you sometimes. But you have to be thoughtful about what input you accept, and how you use it. I don’t think you can solve this problem without a value system, anyways.
You can try to please the crowd, but sometimes the crowd is lost. History is full of cautionary tales of the mob demanding the individual do something destructive.
Taking risks because they feel good.
This isn’t always bad, and some amount might even be healthy. The thing to keep in mind is that when this goes bad, it can go really, really bad - for you or other people. You only get one life and so much time, and since you have the awesome privilege of being alive you should probably avoid stabbing yourself in the eye unless it’s really meaningful. And since we’re talking about meaning now, see where this goes? Back to the problem of how do you make good value judgements.
Taking risks because somebody powerful thought it would be a good idea.
This one isn’t inherently bad, but can go really, really bad. Again, history is full of examples of obedience to formal and informal authority figures going awry. If you get an instruction, how do you know whether to follow it? Here we go again, with value judgements…
The better answer
Choose the risks you take based on your foundational clarity, a broad assessment of the situation, an understanding of what the downside risks are, and a value judgement that a risk is worth taking.
This information is for informational purposes only and its use is provided at your own risk. I am not a lawyer, medical professional or mental health professional and this does not replace the advice of such a professional.