Introduction
Combat survivors usually talk about the terror and the excitement of playing in a death match. People are taking risks because nowadays everyday risk is minimized and people want to be challenged according to Joy Marr, 43, an adventure racer who was the only woman member of a five-person team that finished the 1998 Raid Gauloises, the granddaddy of all adventure races as given in the article “Life On The Edge”, TIME, September 6, 1999.
Old generations didn’t need to seek out risk. It can be easily reflected from global wars, childbirth complications, diseases and pandemics from the flu to polio, dangerous products and even the omnipresent cold war threat of mutually assured destruction (TIME, ). Many of those traditional risks have been reduced by science, government or legions of personal-injury lawyers for recent generations. Life expectancy has increased whereas violent crime is down. One is 57% less likely to die of heart disease than older generations. Diseases like smallpox, measles and polio have virtually been eradicated.
Risk With Present Generation
Children running towards danger and people attempting suicide generally do so to attract attention. Risk-aversion definitely kills innovation. One should always be ready to try out ideas. “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not taking risks, and that means you’re not going anywhere. The key is to make mistakes faster than the competition, so you have more changes to learn and win”, says John W. Holt, Jr. Many people step into risk because they usually are natural problem solvers. Some believe that it is the way to make a difference in the lives of others. The risk is justified if taken for the right reasons.
Teenagers are usually more risk taker. They indulge in more high-risk behavior than most adults. The understanding of why teens take big risks is a key to good parenting.
Every day we hear of middle-of-the-night automobile accidents due to speed, alcohol and fatigue with young drivers. Teenagers are accounted more for markedly more fatal automobile accidents than do adults. They are not bad drivers. Many of the young drivers are very competent. They have gone through recent and latest driver education. They have practiced and honed their driving skills.
Teenagers continue to take such risks despite of the fact that they are very-well educated. According to an article in the April issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, an adolescent brain is far from fully developed. Full brain development is reached somewhere beyond the age of 18, as far as the issue of high-risk behavior is concerned. Some researchers even have suggested that brain development continues until the late 20s. According to Kathy Gates, “When you are faced with risk, uncertainty, and the unpredictable, your ability to deal with it is directly tied to your ability to absorb the consequences. Successful people know that in order to be “choosey” in life, in order to put themselves in a place of control over their lives, in order to make decisions on what they want instead of what they have to do, they must first have reserves”.
Countries like America have always been defined by risk. Let it be their predominant national characteristic. It can be called as a country founded by risk takers fed up with the English Crown and expanded by pioneers. “It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever” says Philip Adams.
Conclusion
Research with brain imaging technology indicates that the area of the brain that regulates impulse and emotions is not yet fully developed before the age of eighteen. The brain system regulating logic and reasoning is developed much earlier. This means that people especially teenagers may have a full intellectual understanding of risk and they may have every intention of avoiding a particular high-risk activity, but they the full capacity to control themselves is absent.
Risk taking is a natural instinct just like the instinct for survival and dominance. We all are wired to take risks. “Often, people stay in jobs that they despise rather than taking a risk by changing their work to an area that they love. Sometimes, we fall into the trap of thinking we are secure in our positions, and believe it is better to remain where we are rather than change jobs” says Catherine Pulsifer in “Love What You Do”. People adopt various safety measures like automatic brakes, safety belts, speed limits and fat-free foods and go ahead to add the element of risk to life. They take a cruise, leap off bridges dangling from an elastic cord, get buffeted by a frothing river in a fragile boat, slip down an icy slope or choose to wander in the Himalayas. In fact, people pay for all this. People starting act recklessly when life becomes predictable. A sense of complete safety is always balanced by the spirit of adventure. It is the craving for risk that has sustained the human through evolution. According to Paulo Coelho, “You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.”
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