Taking Risk

Since time immemorial, people have been doing things that could cost them their lives: swimming across the oceans, eating insects, using nuclear power, etc. The reasons why human take risks can be explained once we know what benefits them when they take risks, which comes down to the crossing boundaries theory.

First of all, we’re talking about the boundary of knowledge. People like taking risks in order to know more about the unknown. It can be either dangerous or not, but since the bet is pretty equal, people take their chances to feed their curiosity. In the best case-scenario, that taking risks may pay off with the new and profound knowledge they usually long for. The discovery of new chemical elements after taking risk of being contaminated is an example for this theory. That is when human beings pass the boundary of knowledge, because they now get the grasp of something they didn’t know before.

Secondly, taking risks can provide people with new breaths in life, which means it helps us to cross our boundary of conventionality. It’s much more exhilarating to do something people don’t usually dare doing. For example, why taking risks to climb up a house roof when one can safely stay in bed and watch TV? The answer is because, the feeling one may get when he gets to the roof is much more enthralling than that when he watches a TV show. Besides, what’s hard to get is considered valuable. Thinking of all the labor of roof climbing and the outcome once people sit triumphantly on the roof to watch the sunset, isn’t it worth doing?

In conclusion, people take risks because they want to broaden their knowledge and escape from their daily grind. Taking risks doesn’t always mean doing reckless things and being regretful after that. On the other hand, it can possibly lead people to new discoveries and new opportunities as well.