During my college years, something came into focus for me that still amazes me to this day. I was, of course, extremely popular.
Now, whereas most of my college years were spent in a relationship, the vast majority of my friends were single for at least a bit of college. So I often found myself accompanying a group of single men out to parties and bars and whatnot. We just loved to hit the town, the lads and I.
The thing that amazed me was that all the lads would get so excited to go have some drinks and meet girls. And yet, very rarely did anybody make much of an effort to talk to somebody they found attractive. I would watch them nervously stand nearby an attractive woman, as if fate was going to force them to suddenly interact. In reality, all they would have needed to do was go over and say hello, and while not every conversation would have gone well, they would have been better off than they ended up most of the time– waking up the next day disappointed. But the uncertainty was too much to bear.
“Risk Tolerance” is defined by Investopedia as the degree of variability in investment returns that an investor is willing to withstand. However, I’m going to go one step further and define it as a measure of how much uncertainty you are willing to withstand in life. And lately, I’ve been thinking about this outside the sole context of meeting members of the opposite sex. Your tolerance of uncertainty carries into every aspect of your life.
In my personal opinion, you are completely selling yourself short if you are somebody who chooses to be risk averse, meaning that you choose to avoid dealing with uncertainty. This I believe because there have been countless times that I avoided a wonderful opportunity, or otherwise screwed myself over, because I was risk averse and decided to play it safe. On the other hand, when I have actually chased after whatever I wanted, I have almost never regretted it. Consider a time when you acted on an impulse you had, whether it was to ask someone on a date, make a friend, have a tough conversation, begin a project, try something new, whatever. I bet that even if you failed, you don’t regret giving it a shot, right? In fact, dear reader, I bet the best moments of your life have in some way shape or form involved dealing with a bit of uncertainty.
And guess what! Most people are risk averse. Most people do whatever they believe will bring them security, even if it sucks. How many people do you know that remain in a relationship that clearly isn’t right because they fear being single? How many people settle for a job that they don’t like because its the path of least resistance? How many people just do what everybody else does without considering alternative routes?
If you decide to embrace uncertainty when it benefits you, you will already be opening yourself up to live a far more interesting life than basically everyone else. Humans naturally fear change and uncertainty, probably because that meant danger back in the day of loincloths and hunter-gathering. But these days nobody wears loincloths. And our lives are rarely in grave danger.
Only after recognizing when we feel uncertain and choosing to be more comfortable with it can we exercise the full capacity of our reasoning. Don’t be a slave to your fear of the unknown. If something is a bit scary, acknowledge it, but then go ahead and continue to weight the pros and cons instead of shying away from it. Join stuff, meet people, make calculated investments of time and money, and don’t be afraid of doing what makes sense for you. Choose alternative routes if need be. Uncertainty is preferable to settling for an OK existence, especially considering the short window of life we enjoy.
Now, you may think, this guy is completely full of it. It is one thing to talk about dealing with uncertainty with grace, and another thing to actually do it. Therefore, I have decided that I will face one my longtime fears this upcoming spring and go skydiving. That will be happening in March and I will be sure to write a post about it, assuming I survive. Oh Lordy Lord.