Uncertainty and Risk

What Matters Most……..Commentary by Jim High

Uncertainty and risk are two things most people try to eliminate from their lives, but I hope to explain why in order to really live you must accept some level of uncertainty and risk in your life.  I spent 35 years in the insurance business dealing with uncertainty and risk, but that is not what I’m talking about.  Insurance after all is just a way, with the payment of a monetary premium, to arrange to transfer your uncertainty and risk to some large insurance company.  And the only way they have of taking care of you is with money.  Does any amount of money replace a life, or a home? 

But, while I’m on the topic of insurance, and I do think you should buy it, let me also mention that Risk Management is actually more valuable than insurance, because by analyzing what your risks actually are, and making changes to prevent accidents and problems from developing in the first place, you can keep a lot of the uncertainties from happening.  That’s way better than just getting paid money if they do.

It’s the personal uncertainties and risks of life that I want to talk about.  Most people as I said just try to eliminate any uncertainty and risk from their personal lives, but that can lead to a very dull existence. 

The days of our lives are all we really have in this world, and we ought to make as many of them between birth and death as memorable as we can.  The ones we remember most vividly are the days that were full of uncertainty and risk, and what we did to overcome it with success in spite of anything and everything.  Let me illustrated with a few examples of how uncertainty and risk are actually good for you.

I think of the time when I learned to fly an airplane, and especially my first solo flight.  Talk about risk and uncertainty that was it.  You know it’s coming, but you don’t know when.  Then one day the instructor calmly gets out of the airplane and tells you to take it up for three circles around the airport and three landings all by yourself.  That’s not the time to be afraid, to back out, or to say you are not ready yet, so you do it.  You overcome your uncertainty and you don’t think about the risk, and in return you gain a skill and the feeling deep inside your soul that you can do anything you set your mind to accomplish. And that is one of life’s most valuable lessons.

Another great example is the two month trip I took to Europe with a friend back in 1979.  We bought a VW Diesel Rabbit and took delivery at the airport in Brussels, Belgium, the day we arrived on our flight from Atlanta.  We signed the papers in the airport’s parking garage, loaded our bags and headed out without any reservations for hotels, or even a fixed itinerary for where we would spend the next 60 days. The result of that uncertainty and risk was the most wonderful trip of my life.  Experiences I will never forget as we did things that tourist never get to do.  We never had a reservation, but always found a delightful and interesting place to sleep each night.

Our cheapest hotel room was at the Hotel Iran in Madrid, Spain, just a block from Plaza Mayor for only $7.50 per night.  That’s only $3.75 each.  It was in Madrid that I saw my first and only bullfight.  Our last night in Monte Carlo we gambled at the casino with the last of our French Francs and almost didn’t have enough to pay our bill to the nice French lady at the B & B before heading off to Italy.  In Rome we wanted to find a place near the Spanish Steps area, but have you ever driven yourself into Rome?  We hadn’t either, but we made it, and found a parking garage just a block away where we stored our car while we toured Rome for five days on foot.

When everything in your life is certain it shuts down your thinking and creativity.  And it is thinking new thoughts, asking new questions, and meeting new people, that allow you to create the new experiences that add to the richness of the days of your life.

These two quotes explain why you also need some risk in your life.  From Anais Nin, “And the day comes when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom.”  And from Eudora Welty, “How can you go out on a limb if you don’t know your own tree?”

What Matters Most…….Never fear uncertainty and risk in your life.  Learn to deal with it and in the doing you will discover a most wonderful adventure.

© 2012 #2  Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467