Risk

January 21, 2021

A few years ago, I was with my kids in a grocery store parking lot when a TV reporter came up to us carrying a camera. Apparently, a high wind had lifted up a bounce house at a festival somewhere in the Midwest and carried some kids in it about 15 feet, bumping and bruising them along the way. "So... " she said, thrusting the microphone in my direction. "Are you still going to let your kids play in bounce houses, given the risk?"

"Well.... sure," I replied. "I mean, it's a bounce house, it's not skydiving or something. What's the worst that could happen? I don't think this one incident is going to change what we do."

My comments didn't make the news, probably because boring common sense doesn't make the news. But it got me thinking about risk and the big picture: Was our hyper-focus on safety leading to sedentary lifestyles that set kids up for future health problems? What does an attitude of safety-at-all-costs mean for innovation and entrepreneurship? Will people generate as many new ideas, take as many financial chances, start as many businesses? I worried about what a culture of fear of the outside world could mean for kids' ability to grow up confident and independent.

What I wanted was for people to think rationally—to sprinkle on a little math—when deciding what risks are reasonable to take. I still want that, of course. But the last 10 months have brought the concept of risk home to everyone via unwelcome express delivery. What's at stake aren't a few bruises, but contracting a potentially deadly disease and communicating it to other vulnerable people. That's a whole different level of risk, and a whole lot more math we're all doing as we calculate our every interaction. It's exhausting.

When it's all over, I wonder whether we'll emerge with a new perspective on danger. Will we send our kids back out into the world to go rock climbing, to bike to school, to crowd into bounce houses? Will we rush to vivid-and-somewhat-risky experiences, or will we be even more careful than before?

I think it could go either way. But after all these months inside, I'm craving a little adrenaline rush. So as soon as it's safe out there, I'm going skydiving.*

—Deb

*Maybe not literally. But definitely metaphorically.