#risk-taking

#risk-taking

Recently I was invited to participate in a podcast on risky decisions. The specific incident was the death of a hiker who had deliberately chosen a route that was known to be really dangerous. Why would any rational person choose to expose himself or herself to this degree of risk? That's what my interviewer asked me. But beyond the question was the interviewer's mindset - you have to be crazy to voluntarily put yourself in a position where you are risking your life.

Please sit down, I begged my neighbour, who was leaning across the car gearstick, arm stretched around my headrest. My pleas for him to fasten his seatbelt were futile. Now he was jigging about, gesticulating wildly as he revealed his latest plans. He had told me before about the script he was writing for Gary Oldman. I hadn't thought too much of it, then all writers have to be a bit grandiose, I had reasoned, otherwise they wouldn't achieve anything.

Both times, bungee jumping had presented itself neatly packaged, properly regulated and entirely safe, and I declined with little-to-no hesitation. Zambia, on the other hand, met me differently. On a warm, windless day over the Zambezi River, standing in front of a rickety platform with little to suggest international safety compliance, I found myself ready to jump. Not metaphorically-genuinely, wholeheartedly ready. I would have done it too, if not for the people with me urging otherwise-and that says something.

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