Slow down. Construction ahead. Watch for flagger. Fines increase in work zones. Icy bridge. Test brakes. Escape ramp ahead. After a recent three-week road trip, the images of signs like those are fresh in my memory. After a recent extreme-sports film festival, the flip side of caution is also fresh. Extreme athletes find incredible beauty and joy in the face-off with nature. They may also find that death is waiting for them there.
I have a tendency to romanticize risk. That tendency comes in tandem with my even stronger inclination toward caution. I back down our driveway in the car to get the paper on an icy morning, rather than chancing another hard fall on concrete. I turn quickly to the indoor treadmill or track when it is dark, windy, and wet. I check and re-check weather forecasts and highway conditions as a travel date approaches. I am, as a result, entranced by those who embrace harm's way and develop the skills needed to succeed under harsh conditions. I believe I can grow from their example, knowing that my degree of exposure differs by an order of magnitude from theirs.
The love-hate cycle of facing and overcoming fear is captured in a phrase from Running the Edge, by Adam Goucher and Tim Catalano. When writing about the effort it takes to become a world-class competitor, they refer to "the fine line between tough and stupid." They draw examples from their own lives to distinguish the impulsive risk of a runaway ego from the calculated push past comfort needed to improve performance.
Adventure of any kind entails risk. It always has an element of the unknown and of facing up to those things we can't control. It has an element of stretching beyond the threshold of confidence to test our limits and improve our skills. It represents the real possibility of failure: freezing in the midst of a speech, relapse on the road to sobriety, rejection in the search for love, or death on an alpine snowfield.
In reflecting on risk, I find it helpful to remember the distinction between tough and stupid. Tough builds capacity in ambitious but calculated steps. Stupid counts on bravado tp leap to across the void. Tough knows the difference between soreness and injury. Stupid does not. Tough understands the implications of failure and accepts them. Stupid denies the implications and ignores them.
I welcome the lessons to be learned from extreme sports. We are capable of more than we think, and the effort to build competence in the face of fear is worth making. I also honor the validity of caution signs along the highway. It is smart to slow down in the congested tangle of work zones. It is stupid to brake hard on an icy bridge. I can honor the warning signs, modify my approach accordingly, and continue moving ahead; or I can ignore them, proceed at full speed, and hope for the best.
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Where in life do you take calculated risks? Where do you act on impulse when caution is called for? Where does fear impede the progress you want to make?
