The Barefoot Corporate Warrior
“Don’t go walking out late at night; bolt your door lock your windows tight. Be much safer staying out of sight. You might go down in a state of fright. Watch out when you’re all alone, locked inside your safety zone, you might find that you have turned to stone” – Shadow Boxer, The Angels
Our precious human life is inherently risky – 24/7, from our very inception until we return to stardust. I could begin listing all the potential risks now and still be going this time tomorrow.
Risk follows us around like a shadow. It is always there, lurking ready to leap out and swallow us in part or whole. Or so it seems to the active or overactive mind.
Some risks we see clearly, can plan for and reduce or eliminate entirely. Others are seemingly random manifestations of the great cosmic uncertainty.
Despite this underlying aspect to simply being alive, we forge on anyway. Often into harm’s way. Sometimes calculatedly, sometimes by chance, sometimes on a whim, sometimes recklessly. Always believing it will turn out alright in the end. Fools for love, fools for life?
I’ve been thinking of the risks, and rewards, of being alive – how we make daily calculations of what might constitute a risk and how we tally up which risks are ‘worth’ taking and which are not.
In our sophistication we have created entire workforces of mathematically gifted statisticians feverishly poring through algorithms and models with the sole purpose of calculating the risk/reward equation to its most precise form.
In the business world, risk analysis is a core skill for high-functioning boards of directors and executives. Matrixes which identify and pull apart all manner of risk factors and their probabilities determine decisions both large and small as well as corporate strategy and tactics.
Outside the AI spreadsheet world, most of us operate most-of-the-time in the realm of instinct and experience when it comes to risky business. Still, even instinct is data-driven relying as it does on life’s inputs, sometimes responding to what appear to be complex, risk-laden events and actions in micro-seconds.
We mostly get it right. Sometimes we don’t, with consequences large, small and occasionally fatal.
The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward goes the old saying. Maybe.
I have previously explored our human optimism bias. It motivates us to get out of bed in the morning. It helps us get through the day. It’s fundamental to our species’ survival over millennia and serves us well when it comes to taking on obstacles and difficulties.
Extreme optimism bias, however, can be dangerous. Extremophiles – the adrenalin junkies amongst us who thrill to injury-inducing and life-threatening behaviours – often come a cropper in the risk-reward game of life. Many go back to stardust in spectacular and untimely ways. Too much risk for the reward.
One of the most enigmatic and greatest risks we humans can take is love of another/others. While love brings many self-affirming and pleasurable moments it also carries with it great risk – loss, grief and suffering – damage which might last a lifetime.
Still, we throw ourselves on the altar of love with passion and abandon time-and-time again. Is it because we crave love as fundamental to existence that we are prepared to wear the risks that come with finding it? Or does love indeed blind us emotionally to the downsides? Its manifold expressions keep the psychologists busy so the answers are not simple.
I think it is only when great love arrives in one’s life that we truly understand how vulnerable we are should it be taken away.
Personality plays its part. One person’s risk is another’s reward. The type, and magnitude of risks we can take are in large part determined by our physical, mental and emotional limitations.
Even so, it seems to me that we are capable of pushing the boundaries from time-to-time if we really want to.
I have recently undertaken a high-altitude trek and am currently planning a second. Some would regard these adventures as a bridge too far, however
I am approaching both as challenges which can be achieved with planning, preparation, training and commitment.
I don’t see this as particularly risky.
Indeed, risky behaviour is a right-of-passage for the not-yet-fully-formed adolescent brain. To the maturing human, risk is a tantalising, alluring possibility of thrills and seemingly unharmful spills. As those of us who survived through that life cycle phase – there will be consequences – positive and negative.
Despite all that, we keep fronting up for risky behaviour because the rewards are often life-affirming. Risk is life!
So, how do we live with this existential given? We accept that it exists. Plan for it if you have the luxury of time but don’t resist its very existence.
When we have the opportunity, we consider each potential risk on its merits rather than entering on some lifespan de-risking strategy to make us safe and secure at all times. Lest we turn to stone? Do we really want to shrink the expanse of our life experiences to avoid risks?
Wisdom of course is knowing when to take or not take a risk – it can be a hard-won form of intelligence. Many factors are involved if we have time to consider. Equally, many factors are involved when we don’t have the luxury of time. More base influences exert themselves in the latter situation.
Each of us needs to come to our own personal risk/reward place – with the potential for expansion rather than contraction I suggest.
The easy option is to simply cocoon at home, safe behind bolted doors, disengaging from the hurly-burly outside with all its potential for disaster. But there are risks to our mental, emotional and physical health in that approach as well.
Plus, it sounds pretty dull to me.
