Bird Droppings November 12, 2024
Sometimes, there is Risk.

It has been nearly a year since I drove my wife to work, and while heading back, I caught sight of a glorious sunrise beginning. By the time I got to the house, I had a few minutes to run inside, get a decent camera, and shoot some more photos. What a great way to start the day. Today was an interesting sunrise as fog shrouded most of my favorite spots.

On the other hand, we were taught how it is more appropriate to always look for the silver lining. Today, I look ahead, especially in light of our politicians and the impending changes to our culture and lives. It is looking at risks and what is ahead for a new year. Risk is a driving force of who we are, why we are, and what we do. How we take chances and avoid Risk are defining pieces of our personality. Our willingness to take risks and avoid Risk is what determines what point in life we go to and/or attain.

“Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.” Lou Holtz

I think you could argue numbers, but Coach Holtz has a good point. Life is a combination of pieces, sort of a tossed salad of sorts thrown together, and the result, well, that is what we live with. One thing, however, that Coach Holtz left out is what makes you respond the way you do.

“In my own experience, the period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one’s life. …Through a difficult period, you can learn; you can develop inner strength, determination, and courage to face the problem.” Dalai Lama

We learn as we walk through life by experience how to respond to a given stimulus, such as how to choose from the choices presented. I often use the example of crossing a stream, stepping rock to rock, as you step each time you see the stones. Some are slick or wet, and others are covered in moss and slippery when you step on them. You learn to avoid certain situations in order to not fall in the stream. However, it may be a warm day, and the fall is worth it since a cool dip may be worth the Risk of a shorter journey across the stream.
As I sit writing, I recall a term from many years ago in my industry days: Risk Management. In risk management training, an acronym has been used for many years in industry, and it could apply to life: the four T’s.

1. Terminate the Risk – do not do it; avoid and or eliminate the Risk: you do not need to cross the stream
2. Tolerate the Risk – in crossing the stream, there is a chance you may get wet; you are willing to risk it
3. Treat the Risk – build a bridge across the stream; true, a mighty storm may wash it away, but in one hundred years, there have not been any
4. Transfer the Risk – let someone else cross for you or buy stream-crossing insurance

I borrowed the idea from my father, Frank E Bird Jr., and his book Loss Control Management.

But unless you actually are involved, you may never really know which way to go in terms of which T you will pick.

“Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” Warren Buffett

Life is about experience and the roads we take. It is ours to choose and to make a mistake or succeed.

“It is not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause. Who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat?” Theodore Roosevelt

Take the day by the horns, as the cowboys among us would say, and try to do your best, carpe diem, and stride across the stream, believing it is summer. You will not succumb to hypothermia if you do fall in, and as always, especially in these days of increasing violence in the Middle East, keep all in harm’s way on your mind and your heart and be sure always to give thanks namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,
Mitakuye Oyasin
(We are all related)
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