Taking+Responsible+Risks

=Taking Responsible Risks=

"There has been a calculated risk in every stage of American development--the pioneers who were not afraid of the wilderness, businessmen who were not afraid of failure, dreamers who were not afraid of action." Brooks Atkinson

Life without risks would be very, very boring and monotonous. Risks take the predictability and monotony out of life—we can consider it a gamble of sorts. When we take risks, we never know if it will end well or poorly. The French have an expression for a life without risk: “metro-boulot-dodo” (which translates to subway-job-sleep). It describes the life of the boring office worker who simply is content (or brainwashed into being happy) with a riskless life.

However, taking risks indiscriminately is obviously not an intelligent thing to do. Yes, jumping into the swimming pool in a thunderstorm is a risk, but is it (the adrenaline rush of brushing Death) worth the pain (such as being electrocuted)? In taking responsible risks, we evaluate the possible outcomes against the potential harm, and decide whether the benefits of the outcome are greater than the potential harm.

However, unlike some people at this school, I am not known for doing risky things (such as bungee jumping, attending The Parties, etc) nor your typical risk-taker, yet the risks I take generally aren’t responsible, either. One risk I take the most often is related to time management: I am a major procrastinator. I could even create a derivative of Murphy’s law: “Even when it’s not possible to procrastinate, I will procrastinate.” I will admit that I have poor time management (my Habits of Mind portfolio is an excellent example of it—this portfolio will be due in less than 8 hours after writing this entry). I procrastinate up to the maximum, then I completely freak out and realize that I might have to pull an all-nighter. Such a personality trait has caused me much stress and pain many, many times.

Case in point: the first lab we ever wrote (this had to do with the alcohols and fuel efficiency lab that everyone had to create by themselves) really was not an example of good work. I left everything (or at least 90% of it) until the night before it was due (I also had a French test the next day), before realizing that I might have to stay up really, really late to do the lab well (but then putting my French grade at risk, because sleep deprivation does not have a high correlation at all with optimal test performance). Thus, throughout the week (before the night the lab report was due), I was indulging in “instant gratification.”

But, in the end, like everyone else, I still had the write the lab report (albeit only a bit later). In this case, the benefit of not having to think about the lab report for a longer period of time definitely did not outweigh the fatigue I felt for sleeping so late that night, did not outweigh the stress and panic I felt for sleeping so late that night, did not outweigh the stress and panic I felt when I thought I might not have time to finish everything, did not outweigh the relatively poor grade on the lab report (caused by a lack of time). Therefore, this was most certainly not a "responsible risk"--the potential form harm was far greater than the potential for whatever "good" that procrastination gives. This is one habit I must improve if I want to be a happy person and succeed in life, because poor time management will be the death of people.



Figure 1: the lab that I procrastinated on.