News from the Fourth Dimension

Claim Your Life
Suppose that you had with you, something very precious; something you don’t wanna live without. And then you learnt that there was this game, which if you won, could convert what you already have into something that you’ve longed for your entire life. And that you had a fifty – fifty chance of making it. Would you play?

This is not a theoretical question. Out of business school and into the real world, one is presented with such questions everyday. And in most places, risk taking of such proportions is supported and not frowned on. Decisions worth millions are taken on the basis of information that wouldn’t fill half an A4 sheet. Theory goes for a toss, and all that you’ve learnt till date seems grossly insufficient.

All that is fine in the professional world, but the information available for decisions in one’s personal lives is lesser. The course of one’s entire life is decided in moments of insanity: rationality leads to endless wits for the right information, the right time, et al.

As a rule, people have different yardsticks, different appetites for risk taking in their professional/personal lives. I guess it has something to do with the inherent nature of man. We all look at the object of our desires but are afraid to reach out and claim it, fearing lest we lose even the sight of it. We lack the courage to gamble it all on one roll of the dice, a single throw that decides our fates. We all wait for the perfect opportunity, and slowly the wait itself consumes us in our entirety.

A random survey among friends led me to believe that the risk appetite of a person has nothing to do with that person’s sex. It depends more on the person’s attitude towards life. And this attitude is not changed or created in a day, but is shaped like a rock on the beach: weathered by the winds that blow from the sea. And it extends to all walks of one’s life. I’m not implying that all of us should plunge head first into the foaming sea of uncertainty to prove that we have the ability to take risks, but what I am advocating is taking chances, once in a while. Because if you don’t take a chance, you’ll never know what could have been.

I guess the ‘Safari’ ad says it all: ‘It doesn’t take much to claim your life’. I second that. All it takes is the courage to reach out and the appetite to let it go.

As for me, on being presented with the same odds, I gambled.

Phi says: Perfection is the natural consequence of eternity: wait long enough, and anything will realize its potential. Coal becomes diamonds, sand becomes pearls, apes become men. It’s simply not given to us, in one lifetime, to see those consummations, and so every failure becomes a reminder of death.