“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”
― Chuck Palahniuk
To live is to risk. Every day, we face a multitude of situations that involve some form of risk. Someone who dreads the prospect of public speaking risks making a fool out of himself (at least in his own mind) by going on stage. A person who’s on a diet and that goes to the restaurant risks breaking their healthy habits. The point is, risk is everywhere, and on a daily basis we are confronted to it. Since we are only human and can’t pay attention to a gazillion of stimuli all at once, we prioritize certain types of risks over others.
Here’s an example to illustrate the matter. I won’t risk my career and financial safety to follow my dream of being a freelancer, but on the other hand, I’ll surely risk my life by texting my buddy while driving on the highway. While this is an extreme example, it demonstrates the paradox of the human mind when it comes to evaluating the accurate measure of risks, or perhaps, of completely overlooking it.
In terms of potential for loss, which translates itself very often into human suffering, emotional risks represent the riskiest type of risks there is. Ironically, while the stakes are the highest in the emotional playground of risks, it’s frequently emotional risks that are taken the most carelessly. We will go to 15 car dealerships to make sure we make the smartest, safest, and most economic wise decision for our next car, but we won’t hesitate a split second to get emotionally involved with someone that screams emotional unavailability. Like our willpower that fails us when we’re at our weakest, rationality loves to play hide and seek when we need it the most.
Whether our actions result from conscious or unconscious thinking patterns, the responsibility rests in our own hands. We can’t control all the variables that are at play while taking a risk, but the sole fact that we consent to taking such risk grants us of a responsibility. You can project your pain/anger/sadness onto others when you don’t get the desired outcome you had in mind, and while all of these emotions are extremely valid, they are yours to hold.
"Someone who dreads the prospect of public speaking risks making a fool out of himself (at least in his own mind) by going on stage."
So....if i begin with the premise that I am a fool, I can avoid many (unnecessary) risks? Sounds like a plan :-)
QUOTATIONS (from the paper "Hazard" by J.G. Bennett):
–"Hope does not consist in the realization of potential, but in the augmentation of potential. This is objective hope."
–"The doctrine of the omnipotence of God is certainly incompatible with the reality of hazard in Creation."
–"There is no other way in which we can come to terms with the world except to reject any kind of security, either proximate or ultimate, or any expectation of finding a truth that is ultimate and absolute."
–"In a perfect world, there would be no place for goodness."
–"There is no permanent, unchanging reality onto which we can fasten or toward which we can hope to move. There is only an uncertain, changing, unstable world within which we can catch glimpse of some possible meaning."
–"To take an opportunity means an act of judgment."
–"The [required] attitude… consists in taking… uncertainties not as obstacles to the achievement of the aim… but, on the contrary, as the only means by which the way is opened."
–"As soon as there is some interaction between mind and mindlessness, then there is hazard because mind is meaningful and mindlessness is without meaning."
–"To say that God is love and that he loves the world would be quite meaningless if the world were no more than a passive instrument in God’s hands, bound entirely by the Divine Will in every action, in every event, large and small."
Why do you always manage to put a smile on my face? Wise premise my friend;)
Objective hope. Woah! I’m loving that one!
Your super cute, and seem fairly smart but i slightly disagree with one post, Online isnt quite as fake as porn is to sex.. all porn is fake, Not all online is fake, Some people do post quite real and sincere, Some hoping to find someone just as real and sincere.
Haha thanks for the compliment:P
I could argue with you that perhaps not all porn is fake. The sexual act that is depicted and the human beings that make it happen are real. Just like in the online world, it’s real people that are typing behind their screen.