RISK: The Game of World Domination

I don’t take many risks in my life, or at least, I don’t see them as risks. I always want to take a risk over playing it safe, because even if the decision turns out to be foolish, I can always say I learned something out of it. I can always say I grew as a person and that I’m better off for the experience no matter what the circumstances. So I take many risks, but don’t necessarily view them as such. I see it more as taking advantage of every opportunity. It’s not a risk if every outcome is positive; some are just more positive than others. No matter the outcome, it’s always better to have the experience, the knowledge, and the pride that results when you take risks.

I may have written about this a few times before, but this experience in my life was very significant, and it helped me to grow and learn in many ways. Junior year, I took three AP classes. At the time it didn’t seem like much of a risk. As time went on, I realized how risky this decision actually was. The possibility of failure came into my life for the first time, and the consequences of this were, to me, unimaginable. It quickly became a learning experience, teaching me how much work would be involved in life, and how much effort was needed for specific tasks. That whole year was one big risk, one that went from good to bad to good. It started out happy and exciting. A challenging curriculum, exciting new material, and the opportunity to think critically and go further in depth was great. Then the work started to pile up and I learned what a risk I had taken. I refused to give up though, and constantly turned my experiences into learning experiences, eventually making up all the work. That year ended on a better note, receiving three out of five on all three AP exams. I was very proud of myself and the risk I had taken, not because I had ultimately succeeded in the end, but because I had learned so much and had grown so much and I had matured so much because of the experiences I had.

Other than this occasion I can’t recall any real risky things I have done. Maybe it’s because of my view on risks, maybe it’s because I tend to play it safe more than I realize. I’ve never put much thought into how many risks I take and how many situations I take the safe road. It’s something I want to think about more, realize risky situations when they happen, and see what I would do. It’s risky to think so critically about yourself, because you might find something you don’t like. But I think that’s a good thing. If you never find your flaws, you can never hope to fix them.