First bit of snow of the season.

It might not look like it but this is 3am. iPhone flash plus a really bright moon still making it through the clouds.

I’ve been thinking quite a lot recently about risk, how I’ve become way more risk adverse. Trying to talk myself out of opportunities or new adventures. Increasingly opting for the safe option or even the do nothing approach. That’s so unlike my younger self.

A work colleague was a former mountain biker. A really good one who entered many a competition and won quite a few. A few years back he retired as it was becoming a bit too expensive. In the Summer he was given the chance of going on a two week mountain biking trek to the Himalayas and now he could afford it. As much as he wanted to go he talked himself out of it, some of the sections were really serious and he decided the risk element was too high for him now. After he turned it down he wasn’t convinced that he had made the right call, so to cheer himself up he bought a decent road bike and committed to a much safer hobby, long distance UK tours. AND on his first day of his first tour, he fell off his bike and broke his shoulder.

But then again someone was on the radio talking about how they had been thinking about buying a family holiday home in Europe for years. Always talked themselves out of it until this year, when they finally took the plunge and bought a place in Spain. Just a few months later and they are waiting to hear how badly the place is damaged after it was caught up in the terrible floods that hit the region recently.

Risk….

I wonder with me if my risk aversion is another way of saying OVERTHINKING. Take an age to make a decision then spend an age trying to talk myself out of whatever decision I’ve kind of made. End result, a feeling of way too much INERTIA.

28 thoughts on “Inertia”

      1. Maya hates going out in the rain and is the only dog I know who will walk round puddles! Playing on the beach or with the hose pipe is obviously a different kind of wet.

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  5. The photograph is stunning. I was always an “over-thinker”, analyzing and playing out scenarios, what-ifs. The times I have had a sudden idea and acted on it because it felt right…I never regretted. It’s easy, though, when you no longer have responsibilities, which is more or less true for me now.

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  7. Those are some ironic situations! Hope both your colleague healed and the holiday is insured. Ugh! Overthinking can steal joy however Nancy raises an excellent point. Your photo is stunning!

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  11. Beautiful photo Gary. I think becoming more risk adverse as we get older is understandable. We have so much more to lose, and have loved ones that also depend on us should we don’t succeed. The Valencia example is a sad one.

    But hopefully it doesn’t mean we stop seeking out new adventures. 🙏

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  14. As someone who also lost my partner, I find it easier to imagine the “worst case scenario” now that the worst has hit home. Risk seems reckless right now, at least for me.

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