We gamble every day.
Not with chips or dice or algorithmic precision, but with routines that look safe until they aren’t.
Not crossing streets, swallowing pills, trusting strangers, or pressing “send.”
It’s not planes crashing or bombs bursting - it’s people as much as products or governments we trust to deliver, that don’t. It’s an experience risk, it’s the failure to accept the loss of our expectations or the unreasonable promises we vote in support of …
We do the math, but the odds don’t always add up.
Risk isn’t extraordinary, it’s constant.
From the moment you swing your legs out of bed, you’re rolling dice.
Bathroom floors, boiling kettles, traffic lights.
We shrug off these risks because they feel small, familiar, baked into our day.
We’re all bad at the math. We inflate rare fears, ignore the obvious ones, and live as if safety is guaranteed. But it never is.
Ask yourself: what risk are you ignoring right now?
Calculated risk is supposed to mean thoughtful, measured choice.
Yet we don’t calculate well. We overvalue the thrill, underestimate the fall, and rationalize our way forward with blind spots wide open.
The stock market, the job change, the new partnership, the late-night drive home.
Each carries a weight we don’t compute accurately. Not because we’re foolish, but because humans have always been terrible actuaries of their own lives.
And still, we risk. Every day, all day.
Risk is not optional, but our math can improve.
Risk is living.
And living is risk.
Basic Musings+ subscription is free; paid subscribers get bonus (+) content