Risk

It was in trying to write a joke tonight that I realized I wasn't being funny anymore, I was slipping into what I would call just an strong opinion. That's what I have this for, to speak my mind. The o opinion started to grow when I was having a conversation about car seats. Essentially, A car seat only stays in code for a year or two before "they" change the rules and decide that you need a new product.

This concept doesn't bother me on a level of money grubbing, I can understand a business model where you want your customers to keep buying a repackaged version of the same product. What does bother me though, is a more grand idea of how as a society we are over engineering every aspect of our lives to eliminate all the possible risk that we can. This transcends to every aspect of our lives, how as a society we have accepted, and allow this fear to control us into thinking that taking any form of risk should be avoided at all costs.

(I should take a quick moment to note, that on a people vs. government level, the biggest tool you can have in controlling the masses is fear. It's important to remember, to keep that little bit of cynicism in your heart whenever it comes to "them" telling you what you should or shouldn't be doing, what is and isn't safe, or even worse, what is or isn't "normal". "They" don't want you to be self aware, because someone who is self aware has a strong mind, and is not easily controlled.)

I'm bothered because I have experienced in my own psyche the effects this heightened idea of risk can have on a person. I try to think of myself as someone who is brave, who knows what he wants and will go after it without fear, but I am not too proud to admit that I have that doubt that lives inside me. Usually this manifests itself in terms of emotional risk. No one likes being hurt, no one likes being sad, but at what point does the risk of these things become too much of a risk to be happy?

I'm not the only one who has sat on a stool, looking across a bar at someone they want to go and try to strike up a conversation with, and has stayed glued to that seat at the fear that they will get shut down. It's easier to just sit and stare at that person, draw your own version of them in their head, imagine what it would be like to take that risk and actually have something great happen, to just think about how nice it would be rather than do it.

Is that really how scared we have become? We can calculate the risk and somehow rationalize that it would be better to live with the what if rather than the what might not be. The problem here is that what we are comparing is that a neutral outcome is better than a negative one, so that makes it OK. "No harm no foul". What we really should be embracing as a culture is "No Pain, No Gain." We should be looking at how great things could be compared to how they are now instead of how much worse they could get.

That's how I want to embrace life. I want to take the risks to reap the rewards. All of this risk assessment can be chalked up to a fear of death, but that in itself is bullshit. If I ever talked to what I would call an enlightened person about their thoughts on death, the answer always comes up the same: "I can't do anything to stop it, so i just have to make the best of the time I have while I am still alive." That mindset is right on the money. You can live life with a general sense of safety and self preservation, but it doesn't mean you need to constantly be scared. Bad shit is going to happen to good people, and there is little you can do to stop it. In the same way that you can be in the right place at the right time, you can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing you do to try to prevent it will stop that, so why fear death so much? It happens, it's OK, death is not some evil force, it is just a natural part of life.

So the question that comes up in this Mantra is, "Are you afraid to live?". That's what it all boils down to when you look at risk, are you willing to risk in order to live life. We need to be doing the things that make us feel stupid, we need to be saying the things to people that scare us. By not risking the chance at having to feel those "scary" feelings, you risk missing on the chance to feel something else, something incredible, something worth risking for.

Embrace the notion that some things aren't meant to be. You don't have to beat yourself up if you try and something doesn't go your way. At least if you try and fail, you can put whatever you were doing to bed and move on. You can let go of all the what ifs, and embrace your next adventure with full force. "When one door closes, another one opens". You have to be able to let those doors close. If you leave them open you will never be able to find the next one. Even if it hurts, let your foot slip out and hear the latch close. You will be laughing when you find that next open door, and realize how fucking wonderful it is.