your tolerance for risk (and how to raise it)

not talking about the board game.

thinking about my future, goals, and aspirations (because that's the mood i'm in), i find myself anxious thinking even about the normal, natural changes that those goals would require. could i move to a new city, quit my job, go back to school, start a business? i could very reasonably do all those things if i wished, but the uncertainty -- in my own ability, of success or failure -- keeps me firmly seated on my hands, and has kept me in a rut for quite a while.

i don't like this about myself; I've begun to wonder whether i am a fundamentally fearful, nervous person. worse: maybe i'm just complacent. but i don't want to live a life unlived and regret each opportunity i missed because i wasn't sure.

do you carpe diem? how does it work?

Oh man, I worry about this all the fucking time.

i know this is probably something i need to work on in a therapeutic setting but it's been weighing on my mind a lot lately.

I'm the ultimate failure at day-seizure. 47 years and a nagging sense of having thrown it all away.

i don't know if it's whether i just have trouble giving myself permission to try and to make mistakes or even to succeed. why should i need permission? i don't know; that's just how i feel sometimes!

is it just an issue of confidence? fortune may favor the bold; can the circumspect learn the necessary boldness?

itt: serious late-20s life questions

If I'm drifting along in my comfort zone, I'm the most carefree laid-back person you could meet. But like you the thought of major changes sends me into a spiral of panic, especially since everyone else seems to pull them off with ease and aplomb (probably doesn't feel like that to them, though).

In my case, much of it is terror of debt and/or hard financial times.

itt: serious late-20s life questions

also late-30s, late-40s... perhaps it is never too late.

in my experience becoming interested and engaged in whatever the thing is yr thinking abt doing makes it less monolithically terrifying - like 'school' or 'start a business' are too vague and therefor scary - people do tend to just say fuck it and jump into these situations - but imo really trying to understand what the meaning and reality and risk of the thing is is essential as far becoming an active participant - also get lots of exercise

Last year, I made a decision to try and correct exactly this problem -- take some chances, create some changes, avoid complacency, and so on. (Predictably enough, this impulse cropped up not long after I stopped living paycheck to paycheck.) I'm trying to draw some moral or lesson from how the effort has worked out, but I think I might have to get back to you in 5 or 10 years on that.

It's a good thing to make yourself do, I think -- and if you tend to be careful about what you're doing with your life, you have to watch out for the danger of sitting around, post-risk-taking, evaluating all the reasons why the gamble's not paying off and you were in a better position before. I have this problem, not liking any option because they're all unknown and might be dismal. I think the solution is genuinely a bunch of mental habits that sound really corny and flaky when you write them down: Thinking long-term, "enjoying the journey," letting go of the idea that you can effectively calculate the best life path and embracing the one that happens to be yours ... I feel like I'm wearing a robe just typing that. Obviously you should try to calculate the best thing to do. But in the long term, a few weird leaps between different paths are probably part of the best thing to do.

Friend-of-a-friend is idk late 30s or something, wants to jack it all in and become a doctor but worries that he's left it far too late, it's a huge commitment and a hell of a long time to spend in training for a whole new career, etc etc. "Aye well", says his elderly scottish father, "the time will pass anyway".

(I'm equally hopeless at this tho)

The exercise thing is really true! Not that I get lots of exercise. But when you do ... I mean, it makes you more vital and energetic and makes risks and challenges feel WAY smaller than they do when you lie around a lot.

In my case, much of it is terror of debt and/or hard financial times.

― Groovy Goulet (pixel farmer), Thursday, February 10, 2011 12:20 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

this, really - I don't have much of a personal safety net, and I wouldn't want to place that kind of burden on my parents

Five years ago I took up martial arts, something I had always wanted to do, but lacked the confidence in my own abilities. I did find it stressful at the start because I wasn't as good as I wanted to be, and this discouraged me from going back. I thought I might as well give it up. Somehow I stuck with it and soon began to notice an improvement.

After 5 years I've worked my way up to a black belt. The changes I was seeing made me realise that there are a lot of things that I had discounted doing because I thought they were too difficult, or I could fail, but you never really know until you try. The results I was seeing gave me the confidence to try all the other things I wanted to do and as a result I learned to ride a motorbike, went for and got a job that I always thought was out of my reach, and started taking part in other sports I would have run a mile from before.

I'm so glad that I actually tried because it worked out and otherwise I could still be doing what I was 5 years ago.

There's also something to be said for making what seems like a snap decision which you've already been building up to for a while. In a way that describes a lot of last summer for me and I couldn't be happier. (Losing twenty five pounds over six months just via some diet changes, cutting back on salt and walking even more, all decided on in the space of five minutes = well hey.)

I've done what some people might consider a lot of "risky" things in this sense over the last 10 years. Moved to a new city where I knew nobody, moved to another country, left that country and started all over again, went back to graduate school etc. Each of these things were pretty scary but I guess I just asked myself if not doing them would be something I would regret and wonder about for the rest of my life. In each case the answer was yes and for me that was far scarier than the alternative.

Lonely guy just thinking baout things

Cosign the exercise thing, but isn't it annoying how such a simple and effective solution can seem so burdensome to have in your life, or is that just me? :)

the exercise thing definitely makes sense. good solid concrete advice!

I think the solution is genuinely a bunch of mental habits that sound really corny and flaky when you write them down: Thinking long-term, "enjoying the journey," letting go of the idea that you can effectively calculate the best life path and embracing the one that happens to be yours ...

mental habits are definitely important; altering my own mental reaction to risk & change is a goal, especially since i have the tendency to generate prerequisites, qualifications, doubts, and worst-case scenarios by reflex. again something for a therapeutic setting i guess (cognitive behavioral therapy maybe) but chanting affirmations & positive thinking should not be overlooked.

sometimes when i exercise i feel nearly omnipotent and fearless - which is kind of crazy in the other direction - but its a good space to get some strategic thinking done

The results I was seeing gave me the confidence to try all the other things I wanted to do

this makes sense, too -- inspiring!

I just asked myself if not doing them would be something I would regret and wonder about for the rest of my life.

see but this doesn't really work well as a motivator for me; i can get preoccupied thinking about all the horrible things that could go wrong

really the only way I get around this is to tell everyone I know that I'm about to do risky thing X until the critical mass of people who know about it is so large that it becomes more embarrassing NOT to do it

I don't know that your shame circuits work like mine, tho

announcing plans doesn't work for me. recognized a lot of myself here: http://sivers.org/zipit

haha i have tried that approach

ha that explains why it only works like 10% of the time for me

On a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high) in each category...

Finances: 5. I know my budget like the back of my hand, but indulge a bit, but never on huge expenses. I budget so that I have up to 5 months of bills saved.

However, I also gamble on sports, hence the 5. I think it's just as much the excitement as it is the money.

Social: 2. I'm very social on a superficial level but take few risks, which is why I am often a bachelor. Every item of my social interaction is so tightly calculated that I am a step behind everyone else and care too much about what others think. Way too conservative.

Job: 8. I always speak up when something is on my mind, and with authority. I put my name out a lot and I am not afraid to challenge someone, even if they are higher ranked than me. I don't't mind sharing my agitation when I feel I am screwed.

Health:: 7. Would have been 9 or 10 too years ago. For years acted as if I was invincible, ignoring any semblance of healthy diet, alcohol intake, pill warnings/interaction, avoided doctors, and never exercised or slept well.

The last two years have made me rethink all that, but I still tend to risk my health rather than play it safe.

I don't know that you need to sink as far as chanting or doing daily affirmations -- sometimes it's nice just to imagine a really long-term scenario that puts the risk you're about to take into perspective! For instance, if you imagine yourself retiring, then "remember that year I moved to Greenland for that absurd job" sounds less like a disaster, and more like a useful life experience, the kind of restless movement that eventually gets you someplace better.

(You just have to try not to compare that with anyone you know who made weird decisions and wound up with a life you consider unattractive.)

i would say i'm a fundamentally risk-averse person. the only thing that trumps security for me is sheer, abject misery. which is why i was able to leave my stable, "good" job and embark on a freelance career. approx 7 months in and i do not regret this decision.

(though to be fair, there were demonstrable signs that doing so could improve, or at the very least not hurt my financial situation. that and the fact that i don't have any mouths to feed made the decision much easier)

ok so i'm gonna overlook the evidence that announcing intentions doesn't work because i want to bring my own situation to the table and think this out. over the past few years i've figured out that i want to advance a career in the apparel industry, with an eye on eventually operating a business of my own (this makes sense to me, as it's kinda my family model: i come from 2 generations of entrepreneurs & business owners). i have worked for an apparel company for 5 years in a customer service function but i think i have some broad insight into how a small online apparel business works. so i think: i should maybe look into fashion design or merchandising programs, get educated into how the industry operates.

but the whole thought process is paralleled and undercut by doubt: like, i'm certainly not the most stylish person, also maybe too fat to be in the industry, maybe this is just an interest to keep as a hobby, maybe i just don't have the risk tolerance to be a successful business owner and would fail horribly (cue ouroboros)!

this is the sort of mental circuit i think i need to learn how to rewire. durr.

also maybe too fat to be in the industry

have you never SEEN Project Runway

go for it elmo, its a tough industry for sure, but if youre passionate abt it and the thought just wont go away then why not, do you have something better to do, start taking some baby steps

and yeah lol theres a lot of overweight workaholics in tshirts and jeans out there designing beautiful clothes

ehh i don't mean this to be a thread where i blog about my personal negativity issues -- just trying to talk it out a little. like, i have some small experience & insight & genuine interest, i'm fairly well financially, i have support -- i just have trouble, i think, discerning the difference between actual risk and my own anxieties

I remember reading something about research suggesting that our ideas of "risk tolerance" are something of an illusion -- that the people's willingness to enter "risky" ventures or occupations actually increased based on their family wealth, so that in a sense they were not really taking as big a risk.

see it's odd because my dad is very risk-oriented, he's always working on some new venture or another, and for every one that's been a great success there have been more that have been half-baked and fallen flat. on the whole, though, it's definitely worked out for him.

success isn't about succeeding it's about not giving up

and other aphorisms

you miss 100% of the shots you don't take

last week I started a fight with a bouncer but in the end we gave each other a hug and sang that baby beluga song

you miss 100% of the fights with bouncers you don't start

see it's odd because my dad is very risk-oriented, he's always working on some new venture or another, and for every one that's been a great success there have been more that have been half-baked and fallen flat. on the whole, though, it's definitely worked out for him.

― tangelo amour (elmo argonaut), Wednesday, February 9, 2011 1:52 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

see this is actually risk hedging ie not putting all yr eggs in one basket - you could say being an entrepreneur is risky but once you are yr dads type behavior makes a lot on sense

http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/ch/1993/ch930109.gif

I def hope to start a business within a few years, have some decent ideas that I've been slowly working on, it's always just been a question of $. it's esp. hard to feel like you can gamble when you're starting out with little-to-nothing.

I remember reading something about research suggesting that our ideas of "risk tolerance" are something of an illusion -- that the people's willingness to enter "risky" ventures or occupations actually increased based on their family wealth, so that in a sense they were not really taking as big a risk.

yeahh this makes a lot of sense

success isn't about succeeding it's about not giving up

and other aphorisms

haha yea this shit never worked for me when it came from coaches in high school but maybe i need to reevaluate. is this why ppl have "life coaches"?

btw thank you for the encouragement icey

I like San Te's approach of breaking it down into categories of risk: financial, social, health and employment. Similarly to him, my approaches to risk vary widely, depending on the venue where the risk is taken.

I am exceedingly risk-averse in financial and health matters, but very risk-accepting in social and employment settings.

I really haven't had the chance to take a risk because the opportunity hasn't presented itself. I'm tired as hell of rural living but cannot afford to get out of it.

it seems that you are declaring a rather absolute risk threshold with that statement

There's always hoboing around on freight trains to fall back on.

you miss 100% of the shots you don't take

― it made me wish batman had written an article on mfas (Edward III), Wednesday, February 9, 2011 1:55 PM Bookmark

But 100% of zero is zero.

yea but if you don't take zero shots then you are at least taking shots, and you will probably only miss some of them

or something

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNtTEibFvlQ

YES

take enough shots and yr tolerance for risk will go way up

xxxxp OTM with the exercising thing. For some reason working out regularly made me nearly go out and buy a $30,000 car that I could almost afford, just because it gives you so much confidence in yourself and your ability to get things done. Its a good feeling and something you can't really duplicate any other way. (btw I never got the car; got married instead...d'oh!)

BTW I supported myself through school playing poker and that also helps you be way more risk-adverse. In 2003 I would beat myself up over losing $20-30 in a home game...by 2005 I was placing big bets (for me at least...between $200-$1000) on football games and not really feeling too broken up if they lost (see the sports betting thread); I had a feeling that the money was infinite for reasons I detailed in that thread, long story short once you accept winning and losing as two sides of the same coin and experience those highs and lows day in and day out risking things doesn't really take any real toll on you.

#

im gonna gets supa drunks this summers and bang lots of hotties all day and night times. lets get all crunked up in here and drink lots for the bitches. say ho if you wanna party and the get drunks too. spring break will be crunks and i'll be wasted all the times. fuck off
pinkfloyd32389 16 hours ago

also when you're making tens of thousands of dollars in poker, that probably helps

xp

I didn't really make out that well sadly. I made enough to cover school + expenses and generally lived a good/stupid life for a while, mainly because gambling sites and sportsbooking sites were exploitable back then, and moving money from one site to another (to clear a bonus or put a large hedge on a sports bet) was 100x easier than the clusterfuck it is today. Come to think of it things were so lucrative in the years of say, 2003-2006 that it was a gold rush for gamblers. Because of that I really only spent like maybe 15 hours a week playing poker and was only moving up and starting to make "serious money" right about when the UIGEA law passed that ruined everything...I shudder to think what could have been had I buckled down and played 50 hours a week and moved up that much quicker!!

pinkfloyd32389 otm

frogbs do you find that your gambling-enhanced risk tolerance translated to other areas of yr life? i am not much of a gambler fyi

Like most people I am risk-averse, but I'm in an early stage of re-evaluating my entire job/hobbies/habits, all springing I think from something a friend told me when I was unemployed in '09, that NYC is no longer a place friendly to ppl with "just-get-by" jobs (unless they have roommates, and I'd rather become a monk in a cell).

I don't know what the direct influences are but it really changed my perspective of money from "collect as much as possible" to "fuck it, you can always make more". This mentality has led me to do a lot of cool/stupid stuff, such as doing a weight loss bet (I lost 24 pounds in a month and still lost), buying a police car (who cares if people trash it, and my god they certainly do), maybe even getting married (how bad can it be?) It gives you the mindset to "reach for your dreams", not like "I want to be a doctor" but more like "I have never jumped on a train before, doesn't it sound like fun?"

i played a bunch of lol poker for a while and i found it helped the way i thought abt risk - i learned to look at outcomes as probabilities - which is kind of obvious - but i think for most people deep in our lizard brains we tend to think of the future as something we can control if we just make the perfect decision - once you start to think abt just putting yrself in the best position to succeed and accept that failure and disaster isnt something you can completely protect against its easier to be decisive

I would probably be much happier if I lived in SF, PDX or New York - but I have no college degree, no verifiable work history for the last seven years (I've been self-employed) and no skills that I really know how to translate into making a life in any of those places.

Btw I would guess many people in places like New York would be risk-adverse since there's so much competition there and so little room for error...I'm from a small-ish city in Wisconsin (near Green Bay) where you can get around easily and live for cheap. I pay $450 a month in rent for a decent place (used to pay $100 with roommates!!) while my brother living in DC pays $2100 for a smaller apartment, I imagine if you switch our positions I wouldn't be so flippant with my paychecks. Thats not to say I blow everything; I have a decent savings, but I'm not afraid to put a few hundred every week on a football/basketball line when I think there's an edge...

oddly, i used to have a fairly high tolerance for certain types of risk. moved to alaska on a whim, moved to mpls without knowing anyone there or having a job, etc.

this no longer seems to be the case, but for different reasons. now i have a hard time imagining endeavors being worthwhile at all, so why bother. i don't think i'm terribly risk-adverse, i just don't see any upside.

like elmo I get to fantasizing about these worst-case scenarios that make me never want to leave the house

also anxiety is pretty much my #1 enemy, can't sleep can't eat when it takes me, taking on more risk seems like a pretty good way of inviting that on yourself

I would probably be much happier if I lived in SF, PDX or New York - but I have no college degree, no verifiable work history for the last seven years (I've been self-employed) and no skills that I really know how to translate into making a life in any of those places.

milo, are you self-employed in something you could do in one of those places? I feel like nyc seems super intimidating to move to - impossibly expensive...but it's such a huge place that if you could pay $300 in rent if you were willing to greatly compromise on your living situation (= live with lots of roommates in the bronx for a while.) I've had to move to sf and nyc both on a pretty tight budget and I think doing something like that would be much harder in sf or pdx.

Gambling onlys sucks when you suck at it!

would party with frogbs, and not just coz he has a similar music taste

Cosigned

partying with me these days is mostly about sheepshead, spotted cow and flynt flossy

the struggle continues

what are you trying to do?

what changed in the interim? did you take any risks?

struggling w/these qns myself atm

i am still in the same job, which is horrible. i feel like i have been standing still for so long that i've forgotten how to move. it feels like time is not only passing me by but is picking up speed. i'm not feeling well today.

you're just having a bad day!
you should revisit this question when the fog lifts. imo.

we're also in the midst of a global recession unlike any other for the last 80 years.

w/exponentially increasing population, unparalleled erosion of the earth's natural resources and increasing automation and overseas outsourcing of both low-level and skilled work

we have jobs so there is that. it's little solace though; I feel stuck myself. : /

Interesting thread.

I’ve never taken a significant risk in my life. Increasingly I am thinking this is a major problem.

now is the time

i dunno man starting the ‘unhappiness of ilx’ thread was pretty risky imo

oh, i never don't speak my mind.

but in terms of the things elmo argonaut was discussing above, taking initiative professionally etc

I think my tolerance for little risks is pretty low (I have a hard time going to eat at restaurants that I haven't done considerable reading about, for instance), but for big risks (changing jobs, moving to new countries where you don't speak the language, having a family) my tolerance is frighteningly high

I def hope to start a business within a few years, have some decent ideas that I've been slowly working on, it's always just been a question of $. it's esp. hard to feel like you can gamble when you're starting out with little-to-nothing.

lol I have absolutely no idea what I was talking about here

This remark by Nabisco about resolving to take more chances, near the top of the thread, jumped out at me:

Predictably enough, this impulse cropped up not long after I stopped living paycheck to paycheck.

Before letting go of the trapeze, it helps to think there is some kind of safety net to keep one from hitting the ground at terminal velocity.

As a tot, I went to a day care center run by the university my dad was attending at the time. the minders were all early education grad students. apparently one of the cited me in his research as an example of “low risk tolerance” behavior or some such. He was/is right!! I am totally uncharacteristically risk-tolerant when it comes to my 401k tho

I worry about this a fair bit - a general sense of passivity has characterised my relationships, my career, and my approach to life in general. Since I switched to teaching I'm falling upwards kinda quickly, which might signal a change, it might not. This might be connected, it might not, but my old man has often said 'give me a piece of paper and write down everything I want and it'd still be blank half hour later'; I used to scoff at him, but...

Lol at my first sentence falling into classic passive voice.

Very risk averse in general but if i were recruited to do a terrorism I’d let adrenaline take over

hm

I have taken a fair amount of risks which doesn’t mean I’m “risk tolerant” just impulsive and stubborn.

Lately I’ve been thinking that if I were born in a different era under different circumstances I might just have been the sort of person who killed other people for a cause.

After having taken some risks and landing flat on my face i’m now a lot more cautious

And i get my kicks from solo sports instead

I feel much the same way as Treeship sometimes (never taken a "significant" risk), but when I get to beating myself up about that, I consider how much more risk-averse I was 15 or 20 years ago. Like, I was one of those kids who was terrified of everything and it took me a *long* time to build up any kind of confidence or risk tolerance. It probably would have never happened if I hadn't been lucky in some ways, but still I try to give myself some credit.

Also, what constitutes a "significant" risk for someone is going to vary depending on what their circumstances are. The main risk I'd had my eye on recently was performing music live, which I've only done before a few times in very low-stakes contexts, but that's been deferred for the obvious reasons.

Before letting go of the trapeze, it helps to think there is some kind of safety net to keep one from hitting the ground at terminal velocity.

― A is for (Aimless)

yep that's been my experience. i don't know that i was born risk-averse - it was something i learned, just like i learned helplessness, from being punished, repeatedly and harshly, for "failure". fortunately over time it's something i've had the opportunity to unlearn, at least to a limited extent.