Risk - An evaluation

Hi and today I would like to talk about risk, no not the picture above but the presence of risk in decisions that people make each and every day.

During this I would like to cover some main parts of Risk:

1. Defining risk (including "comfort zones").
2. How Risk affects our day-to-day decisions.
3. Does adding Risk have an impact in our lives and how much impact does it really have? ( from experiences I have had ).
4. Conclusion on Risk

So before we go into the first topic I would just like to mention that I do have some experience in risk, as my job is in a bank and I have tried to add more risk into my life recently, which is part of the reason I want to make a post. The other part has got to do with me being part of an ever-growing community like this which has a lot of "newbies" and also in the crypto verse that I am part of too, and I want to ensure that people understand what they are getting into and hopefully provide some useful information.

1 - Defining Risk

The Oxford English Dictionary describes risk as:
"A situation involving exposure to danger."
It also defines the comfort zone as:
"A situation where one feels safe or at ease."
It also defines mitigation as:
"The action of reducing the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something."

I think that with ease everyone can see the 2 definitions given above are the exact opposite of each other so the term "being out of your comfort zone" means to be more exposed to risk or in normal terms, doing things you would not normally be comfortable to do.

2 - How Risk affects our day-to-day decisions

At first glance the picture above may seem confusing and hard to look at, but if you can imagine that the nodes in this tree are decisions you make based the factors you would use to make those decisions then you can see that every decision made has quite a few different "consequences" it can take on. Obviously, every decision you make is not going to have so many options open to it like whether or not you are going to butter bread but lets look at an example we can all relate to.

I'm sure by now everyone on here recognizes the above logo and now that we are on the same page let's look at the process of looking at this cryptocurrency or how I looked at it. Much like with any cryptocurrency I did a google search on this and read a fair amount of things before really diving in and then being on here and then buying steem on bittriex. Especially with the last part, it did take me a few weeks of being here before I committed to buying on bittrex with the term that sums this up best is "Risk Mitigation". So by looking at the top picture again it did take a few steps for me to reach the decision as that gave me the confidence to then go ahead and buy, and this can be thought of as my "comfort zone" for steem.

3 - Does adding Risk have an impact in our lives and how much impact does it really have?

In a lot of cases as people we strive to maximize what we can get out of any situation but by minimizing the risk involved with the optimal being known as a "low risk - high reward" situation but is this truly achievable or just a fantasy? Out of my time spent, all 26 years I would say I have been adverse to taking a lot of risks until recently as I just wanted to move along with my life and take things slow and steady. Eventually, something clicked and made me think "Will ever achieve anything as I am now if I continue down this road?" With this in mind, things changed, I have been and met people on the internet that I had only spoken to on multiple occasions ( maybe I will do posts on them at some point ) which I would never have done and I am so glad I did them for the experience.

4 - Conclusion on Risk

I think the image above best describes things in a way that is simple for people to understand. Many people have made quotes on this who are currently extremely successful but let me be clear, everyone's comfort zone is different. You can change and make things happen, but everyone does things at different speeds and with varying degrees of success and all you can do is forge on and try to change things. So to conclude I have certainly had more success by adding more risk into my life, and I'm sure people on here will be the same whether we be minnows, dolphins or whales.