Take Risks

In Chinese, the concept of “risk” in the two characters 风险 is often seen as a blend of “danger” and “opportunity.” However, two different academics have argued online about whether that pair of Chinese characters for “crisis” (not “risk”) equals the characters for “danger” and “opportunity”. Turns out that the first character definitely means “danger”, but the second one is kind of like a suffix that, by itself, just means “moment” (arguably a good kind of moment), and shows up in an entirely separate pair of Chinese characters for “opportunity”…

Regardless, the “fudged” translation (or not) of what “risk” is in Chinese, it’s something I quite like because it leads us to think of “RISK” as a mix of DANGER and OPPORTUNITY or POTENTIAL. In practice, this means that when facing unusually high risks, there needs to be clear opportunities for improved benefits for us to take “said risk”. So, if YOU ENVISION OPPORTUNITY or POTENTIAL in something, then the danger becomes less relevant, in turn, making the RISK fully worth taking! So, face YOUR fear and GO FOR IT, because as @steven states:

– You have to risk failure to succeed.
– You have to risk rejection to be accepted.
– You have to risk heartbreak to love.

This means, what YOU WANT is on the other side of these fears. Therefore, if you’re always avoiding risk, you’re risking missing out on experiencing LIFE itself!

📍Somewhere on the coast of Bali
🎥 @artglorybali