Tag Archives: risk

Gambling and everyday life

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In the world of gambling there are many choices for those who wish to risk their hard earned cash. Some people who gamble feel they are not risking their money at all. They know they are going to lose their money. The question then becomes what to gamble on or what do as a gambling pastime for a period of time while making their money last as long as possible for as much fun as possible.

The only difference between all other forms of gambling revolves around a sort of triangle made up of: acceptable risk, potential wins or losses, and the amount of pleasure derived from gambling. Some people only require need a bug crossing the floor and they have everything they need to gamble with. For others gambling may be much more complicated, such as the stock market, or a speculative business venture.

For everyone who gambles decisions within the process of gambling can be made to be very be complex but the possible outcomes are simple.

Over ones lifetime one wins more than they lost.

Over ones lifetime one wins more than they won.

Over ones lifetime one comes out even, neither winning nor losing.

Looked at from these three conditions there is not a lot of difference between gambling and life, except adding more gambling in ones life adds the possibility of losing or winning more.

In life enjoying a successful retirement means having a long series of wins. A long series of wins may have meant: Getting the right education for the job opportunities that are likely to be in demand over ones lifetime; finding the right job(s) that turn themselves into successful lifelong careers; making investments that make money; avoiding the traps and pitfalls that other people fall into and never recover from.

Struggling in retirement, or not being able to have a retirement means none, or few of the choices of success came to pass. Not always the fault of the individual, but rather due to a series of events beyond ones control. An individual may have tried to do everything right, and everything turned sour. It happens often. The recent series of hurricanes, floods, and fires for example….

Most of us over the span of our lifetime come out even. We make some decisions that some may see as brilliant and do well for us. We have other situations that may leave us wondering what we could possibly have been thinking about when we made them. Most of our decisions though end up somewhere in between. We made good decisions that did not reach the stars, and poor decisions that did not destroy us. We also made some decisions that were okay.

Over the course of our lives we all gamble. Over the course of our lifetimes we all experience the same outcomes as an active gambler.

Of course we are not starting equally from the same mark in the race towards the end. Rather we are randomly placed on a starting line we can not see, gambling with our lives with the hope we make more good decisions than poor ones.

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Risk management weighting risk wins and risk losses

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I like the idea of managing my day to day risk. It is sort of like the insurance company does when they are deciding what my cost will be for my car insurance. It is also doing a little thinking about day to day life, and balancing those activities with more risk over a longer period of time. There is a large happy medium in our lives if we choose it. Sort of like Buddha and taking the middle road, it is not really that difficult and the returns are great.

I like driving as a good risk example because I live in a city, and driving is a part of my everyday life. I take two roads to work that are main trunk roads. They each have some serious accidents on them everyday. Because the traffic is moving rapidly, and there is a lot of it, I have to come to terms with possibilities that an accident I am involved in will probably be very serious.

At the rush hour times of day are the greatest risks of an accident. Early in the morning, there is always a possibility of a late night drunk heading home. During non rush hour periods are women and children in the car, or not, hurrying to get their shopping done before they have to meet their children and start their evening.

At night are usually the young drivers speeding around with their newfound power in their foot. This group of driver’s can rightly claim to have the fastest reflexes of any group out on the road, but they are also the least experienced, and most easily distracted group on the road. Of course their accident record and insurance rates reflect it. It appears by casual observation that they lead all age groups in rear end accidents, if you can call such accidents, accidents. Normally, they appear to be collisions caused by lack of attention.

When I venture out on these busy roads I have to be aware of the hazards of that time of day. The most serious accidents are at rush hour, the rest of the day except for about seven to ten at night is about the same risk, with that isolated period where I am most likely to have a collision with a teen age driver. So the wise thing to do would be off these roads during rush hour and middle evenings. To do otherwise is to increase my personal risk of being in an accident.

This same thought process applies to everything around me. Certain foods are better choices, some neighborhoods are safer, the amount of sleep I get makes a difference. In a high level view of our lives, we control very little of what happens around us. How we think about what we do, we can make a big difference in keeping ourselves safe.

Thinking about 9/11 is another good risk thinking exercise. You can name a number of large cities where you might live where 9/11 could have happened. You can also make a list of buildings most likely to be effected in each of these cities. Once you have that list, you can better manage your risk of being hurt even if you live in a large city with many possible targets. Better yet is not living in a large city, and choosing small town life instead. The problem with a small town is it has risks of its own, unless you know you would enjoy small town life.

It is good to make a little list of activities once in a while, broken out by time and risk. Too many risky activities means we are going to get hurt sooner instead of later, but too little risk does not always mean safety either, as accidents happen everywhere. Taking a known risk you can afford on every level may be a good risk. Speeding down the street and running a red light at rush hour, is a foolish risk. Knowing the difference keeps life exciting. Knowing the risks you take in general, and knowing whether or not you will survive if you lose, both physically and emotionally, makes life a lot more enjoyable.

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Risk verses belief, providing and refusing help

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This is an old story I enjoy telling. This story could be classified as an allegory I suppose. For many of us the story fits our lives more often than it misses. Risk taking is not something we humans are programmed for. Either is examining our beliefs. This story is about risk taking, belief. Sometime we have to be aware enough to know it is time to take the hand that is offered us.

There was small town somewhere below one of the great dams, levees, or next to a river. One day it started to rain, the dam was giving way, or the levee was overran. The town started to flood.

The first emergency response was the town sheriff who drove around the town, announcing on his loud speaker that the town was going to flood soon, and everyone needed to pack up and move to somewhere out of the flood zone. There was a man living in one of the houses, who was reading his paper at the time, and when he heard the PA announcement to evacuate, he thought to himself, “The Lord will provide.”

Of course the water came into the town, and soon was at the door of the man’s house. The National Guard had been called out by this time to both help the folks evacuate, and to protect the town. When a truck drove up to help the man gather his important belongings and leave his home, the man refused saying, “The Lord will provide.”

Shortly thereafter the water was in the house. The water was muddy, knee deep and rising quickly. The man took refuge in his belief, and moved his most important belongings to an upstairs room. He said to himself as muddy water filled the ground level rooms, “The Lord will provide.”

At this time a federal government agency arrived in town to help. A few men in a boat thought they saw movement in an upstairs window of a house. It was the man moving his now meager possessions to the roof. They motored over to the house and told the man they were there to take him to safety. The man refused, steadfast in his belief saying simply, “The Lord will provide.”

As the man sat on his roof the water was rising higher and moving faster. The man could feel the pull of the water on the frame of his house. It was starting to groan slightly from the pressure of the water. A helicopter news team was in the area, filming the flood, and spotted the man on the roof. They could not understand how the man was missed by the previous rescue teams. They stopped filming, and flew over the house were the man sat on the roof. One of the men holding on with one hand, hung out the door of the helicopter and reached out with his other hand to the man to take hold of. The man sat where he was and waved off the helicopter. He said to them and himself, “The Lord will provide.”

The house started to groan loudly and twist. The opposite corner was torn away from the house and floated away in the torrent. As the man watched in horror as his house was breaking apart, a tree which had been uprooted, hit the house and stilled for a few minutes before floating away with the current. With a mighty groan, the house shuddered one last time and broke apart. The man was thrown into the muddy flotsam filled water and drowned.

Suddenly he was standing before the throne of God, awestruck in what he saw before him. God looked down and asked the man why he was there? The man was not sure, but then realized he had drowned, and he became angry with God for letting him drown when his belief was so strong that nothing could shake it.

God looked at the man standing there and asked the man this question. “I sent the sheriff to your house, I sent the National Guard, I led two men in a boat to you. I made sure men in a helicopter saw you, and tried to rescue you. I sent you a tree to hang on to as your house was swept away so you would survive the flooding. What else did you expect me to provide?”

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