This pandemic has really brought out our fear of any and all risks. In our haste to lessen the risk of becoming sick or dying, we may be blindsided by risks we forgot to notice. It’s ironic but we may be in for a lesson. Get my thoughts in this week’s edition of “Isn’t That Ironic?”.
Over the decades I have watched with dismay as our society has become increasingly fearful of “risk”. High school students can’t walk across the street from the school without completing a four-page field trip form and having their parents acknowledge all the various “risks” involved in crossing the street. It’s against the law to ride a bicycle without wearing your PPE (personal protective equipment, for us normal folks). Every time I turn around someone else is asking me to sign a liability waiver form. No one wants to take any “risk” and everyone wants to do their “due diligence” (even though almost nobody knows what that means).
I think it’s mostly due to our courts failing to hold people responsible for their own actions. It’s not your fault you did something foolish and hurt yourself. There should have been a warning sign, a protective barrier (between you and your bad judgment), or a liability waiver. The case of the woman to whom a US court awarded a million dollars because she burnt her mouth on a hot cup of coffee comes to mind.
Crossing the Hunza River in Northern Pakistan. 2009
Not the safest bridge I've ever seen!
Everyone is so fearful of “risks” we are afraid to do half the things I grew up doing without a second thought—or a liability waiver. Nowadays, suing somebody else has become a national pastime and a great source of unearned wealth for gold-diggers and lawyers alike. I recently read that one-quarter of Americans, rather than saving for their retirement, plan to find someone to sue.
This month, governments and doctors all over the world are shutting down daily life and daily work to reduce the risk of people being infected with the Covid-19 virus. But there are risks in everything—everything we do and everything we don’t do. The old safety meeting joke, “Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt,” isn’t true. If you do nothing, you’re risk of death increases dramatically. Our bodies need to keep moving to keep alive. When we stop, we soon die.
By stopping most types of work, we risk a worldwide economic depression. If we look at the last depression of the 1930s, it led directly to social upheaval, radical political movements, and world war. These are also real risks. But no one in authority is talking about them. It will be really ironic if we avoid the risk of hundreds of thousands of deaths due to a virus only to suffer a worse result because of risks we ignored.
Of course, the riskiest thing in life is to avoid engaging with your spirit. You can start with prayer. I pray things will turn out for the best, not the worst. Please pray with me.
God Bless You!
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