The Joy of Risk Avoidance

(I wax philosophical today)

WHYY/NPR guest this morning, "We're moving towards utopian risk avoidance." Yes, it seems that way. Billions of dollars spent on risk avoidance, not just by the U.S. Government closing 19 embassies in the Middle East based on intelligence of a terrorist attack, and not just by insurance companies, intent on limiting the perils they insure against, and their payouts. 

How do you avoid terrorist attacks?  How do you insure against hurricanes, or tornados, or forest fires, or floods, and much more? They are "unforeseen." Over 127 countries have experienced terrorist attacks since 2001. Just like you or I could die of a heart attack at any moment. Over 597,000 died from heart disease in 2010 in the U.S. alone.

"Utopian" means "founded upon or involving idealized perfection."

Governments would like no risk. Companies want no risk. Investors want high yields with no risk.
Ideally. They work hard at that. Limiting their exposure as much as possible, as much as citizens will pay for it, like border fences, policyholders will pay higher premiums for extra endorsements, investors will buy preferred stock.

We'd all like to lower risk - rob a bank and not get caught, have a good job and not get laid off, or retire with a guaranteed pension for life. Not get struck from behind while stopped at a traffic light. Not have a child with learning disabilities, for their sake, although we love them just as much.

But life, living, is risk. Taking risks. Surrounded by risks. Drowning in risks. Some avoidable? Yes, if we can ameliorate them thru a study of history, facts and trends, even inferences. Most are not avoidable, like a sudden electrical fire in your new home.

Fate? Must we all live with innumerable, uncontrollable risks? What's the greatest risk? To hundreds of millions its leaving this world without having the last rights - without a last confession and lasting forgiveness. Can a human being even forgive sins? Millions do, because hundreds of millions believe. They've decreased their risk of going to . . . hell. Their soul going to hell.

What if there is no physical or spiritual place . . . hell? What if the afterlife is a continuum, a never ending journey, a never ending journey of atoning for one's ill deeds. And what if, on the balance,  you led a good life? Were of service to your employer, your community, neighbors and friends? Cared for, loved, and provided for your family? Wouldn't those good deeds overwhelm and completely obliterate your bad ones? What a thought! Judged solely by our deeds.

Judged by them in this life as well. Laws. Order. Society. Community. Family.

For good laws and lives, morals are needed. Fairness is needed. Equity and ethics are needed. Learning those, assimilating those, performing those, the risk of going to hell is obliterated. A never ending journey on the continuum toward the light, toward wholeness and goodness, and love. Embracing our loved ones in the next world also. 

Just trying to be as good as we can be means that when these catastrophes fall upon us, and they will, we rise above them, we carry on, we build anew. We are assisted. We are thankful for the assistance.

Service to the world of humanity is a worthy goal to set before our eyes then. Deeds, not words. Not a utopian, never reached ideal. Reality. Here and now. 

Gandhi said, "be the change you wish to see in the world"

By Rodney Richards