Heck, I did stuff like that too, “but for the Grace of God go I.” Doesn’t mean I should have. I think what’s important for mental and physical wellbeing is being active and outdoors, not stuck on social media. Risk taking isn’t for everybody.
Common sense, or should I rephrase it as “Uncommon Sense”, is important, and it seems many lack it and end up with a Darwin Award. I have 3 adult children they are not risk adverse, but wise in their choices. Ski the trees, rock climb, backpack, kayak and canoe knowing their limits and avoiding unnecessary risk is key to growing older and wiser.
Perhaps, I should have said risk assessment. No matter who you are we face risk everyday, it’s part of life. Some have higher tolerance for greater risks, and I am not advocating for taking unnecessary risks nor thoughtless risk taking. That’s a death wish, and not a way to live and learn.
I’d add that some risks I’m referring to goes beyond just danger. Sometimes the risk being avoided and sheltered from is simply discomfort. Kids can’t be cold, hot, wet, bug bitten, sweaty, a little thirsty or hungry. As we would say in the Army, they’re simply not mentally tough, e.g. resilient. If you can’t be resilient in your play, you sure won’t be in real life.
Teenagers are terrible at assessing risk. There are plenty of things I did as a teenager that were stupid and riskier than I imagined them. That fact that I survived them doesn’t mean they weren’t stupid and risky, or that I’m a better person for having done them.
I don’t see virtue in risk taking for its own sake. I understand thrill seeking because it can release a cocktail of adrenaline, endorphins and dopamine. But it should be obvious that the author of No Short Trips wasn’t thrill seeking. And most stories of people dying because they failed to assess risks weren’t thrill seeking either.
Also, we shouldn’t confuse following traditions with thoughtful decisions. Sometimes, tradition reflects accumulated wisdom, and sometimes it’s just tradition. It took the English a couple hundred years to stop cock throwing. Hazing is a good modern example. And we’re still trying to get parts of the world to stop using rivers as open sewers and walking around in bare feet near where they defecate.
Finally, the DoD needs to reform its medical eligibility criteria to stop rejecting people who are physically capable of performing the vast majority of military jobs. I can’t speak for the Army, but I started my career as an officer in the USAF, and watched the service retain people who develop health conditions that would have disqualified them at recruitment but didn’t affect their job performance. In the old days of paper records, fraudulently presenting your medical history was easier and the practice was unofficially encouraged by recruiters. Now that medical records are electronic, that’s stopped.
Also, the military always has difficulty recruiting when the job market is hot because the pay is low. My parents generation mostly viewed the military as the employer of last resort for young men. Today’s military is definitely not, but it still pays like it is.
Would you describe motorcycling as stupid and risky? I don’t think it is stupid, but it has definite risk, and many would say that it is both.
I don’t see anyone here nor have I said there is “virtue in risk taking for its own sake”. Risk taking hasn’t been nor should it be discussed in isolation.
Risk is what life is about. If not for risk, nobody would ride a roller coaster. Why would anyone jump out of an airplane with a parachute if it was not to learn it as a safety option. People dive with sharks, yet many swimmers head to the beach when a shark is seen nearby . . .
Very interesting article in the last year that Sea Kayaker magazine was publishing. A young woman who self identified as having grown up with helicopter parenting joined a class in sea kayaking, l think somewhere along the west coast. It was a class that got them out into bumpy stuff, paddling and rescues in some amount of conditions.
The entire rest of the class were 50 somethings.
What the young woman wrote about was minimally the skills stuff. It was mostly about her realizing that the boomers in the group shared none of her angst about being alone, in a new group and away from the familiar. She had not realized how differently she saw risks and the world than the boomers.
I would give a link to it if it was easy to find, maybe someone on this board can grab it.
I think it goes to this discussion. Boomers like myself arrived at adulthood having pushed limits growing up, as a normal and accepted part of being a kid or a young adult. We were alone more, or out of sight from the home for the better part of a day more than the helicopter folks.
I had a few experiences in there that were risky, and l got out having learned something about how to assess a situation and get myself out ok. Mist here would say the same.
But what happens when those skills weren’t learned thru experience? And it is all about words that someone heard? Do they assess risks differently? Like are they more likely to go out in excessive heat to hike without water? Tragic story just today on that, four mountain bikers got such hikers to safety but one of the rescuers collapsed on the way back.
I don’t know how to solve this. But l also feel that there are too many people that cannot connect the dots.
Im not against calculated risk. How i calculate that risk is way different than when i was younger. Im not going to tell you that the risks i take are risks that you should take or that im an expert. I realize this is a discussion based forum but not everything needs to be shared or discussed, particularly when you are trying to promote “best practices” but are doing questionable things. To me not wearing a pfd or lacking self rescue skills (swimming, rolling) is questionable. I want to see the sport get safer not riskier. So i try to boat places where i can effectively self rescue and i wear my pfd.
Would you describe motorcycling as stupid and risky? I don’t think it is stupid, but it has definite risk, and many would say that it is both.
Motorcycling is like paddling, an umbrella term for a variety of activities with widely varying risks. Riding on recreation trail networks while sober and wearing standard protection is a very safe activity. If you ride motocross, you are guaranteed to get injured, but serious injuries are rare and deaths are practically unheard of. Riding on public roads is obviously more risky, but it very much depends on where and how you ride. Street racing used to be the big killer. We lost a lot of young guys during the superbike craze, and left many more with skin grafts. Nowadays, at least in my area, it seems like riding home at 3AM after a late Saturday night is the more common killer.
I don’t see anyone here nor have I said there is “virtue in risk taking for its own sake”. Risk taking hasn’t been nor should it be discussed in isolation.
Perhaps I misunderstood her, but I think MohaveFlyer is trying to suggest that engaging in risky behavior might be an important part of human growth.
Risk is part of human growth. If risk acceptance wasn’t embedded in the human spirit, where would we find anyone to fill the role of first responders or military. The lines between good risk and bad risk is blurred. Some are merely saying we have no right to tell other how much risk they should be willing to accept. Live and let live.
Risk is what life is about. If not for risk, nobody would ride a roller coaster. Why would anyone jump out of an airplane with a parachute if it was not to learn it as a safety option. People dive with sharks, yet many swimmers head to the beach when a shark is seen nearby . . .
Thrill seeking can be separate from risk taking. Riding a roller coaster is one of the least risky activities you can engage in. The whole point of roller coasters is to trigger the chemical reward without taking a risk to do it. Same with bungie jumping. And skydiving for the most part. There is a very strong safety culture in the sport and stats suggest it’s moderately risky. On the other hand, BASE jumping is possibly the riskiest activity you can engage in.
Most people chase thrills while trying to minimize the associated risks. But a few people chase risks. I don’t know why riding a roller coaster is too much for some people while skydiving is not enough for others, but I suspect it’s brain chemistry.
Anyway, I think we’ve gotten away from the point of the thread, which had nothing to do with thrill seeking or childhood risk taking. It was a failure to assess the risks of a seemingly everyday situation.
Maybe, but a thrill is a thrill. Roller coasters come off the track regularly - driving fast around corners on mountain roads is probably more dangerous, but I enjoy it. Ironically, I was required to take a driving course (we called it crash and bang), and I didn’t do as well as others in the class. That was because I set the level of risk I was wiling to take when by myself and when in a formal class. It surely had something to do with me having less skill and slower reflexes. We each have our own threshold for risk. That’s why some people win races - If you’re not first, you’re last. I don’t mind being last.
Actually, roller coasters don’t come off the track regularly.
Two weeks ago, I was on vacation with the kids, camping followed by a few days at Smuggler’s Notch in Northern VT. While we were at Smuggs, at child fell into an underground water storage tank next to the splash pad at one of their pool complexes. We were in the pool next to the splash pad at the time. In the panic, I gave my wife’s swim goggles to the lifeguard who went into the tank.
The child later died, because of a risk that nobody realized was lurking there. Who would have thought kiddie splash pads could be so dangerous? The risks that you’re not paying attention to are the ones that are going to get you. That was the point of castoff’s story I think.
While at Smuggs, I introduced my kids to downhill mountain biking. They have a small, beginner-friendly course serviced by a magic carpet lift. My 7-year old boy rides a hybrid Woom 4 and I’ve never taken him MTB riding before. But he got enough confidence on the little pump track to try the downhill course after some encouragement. Going down, he fell off the first bridge, got himself going again, bounced off the pedals when he tried to sit on the seat, and finished rather shaky but in control. He went up again, but got scared at the top. I was able to coax another similar run out of him before he declared it was too scary, but later he was proud that he did it.
I think those are the kinds of experiences that are important for growth, and they’re different from risk taking. The biggest danger my kids faced that day was getting shoelaces caught in the magic carpet.
OK, as long as those people who knowingly (even eagerly) place themselves in predictably dangerous situations don’t (1) put others in harm’s way, (2) criticize search and rescue personnel for thinking twice about putting their own lives in danger when the daredevils draw a losing hand, and (3) expect everyone else to pay their medical bills, through taxes and/or insurance premiums, when they need to be patched up and given care for months or years.
