It’s good to get into the habit of asking yourself, “What is the worst thing that can happen?” in any given situation. If the worst thing is not that bad, then you might be spurred into action. If the worst thing that can happen is really bad, then it might cause you to sit this one out and stay on sidelines because the possible downside is so terrible, even if the chance of it happening is very small. It’s better to err on the side of caution than the side of catastrophe. I will focus on the negative here because I am naturally an optimist, and that has gotten me into trouble a few times. I still recommend optimism as an outlook on life and as an approach to life, but I also recommend having in your mind the worst-case scenario before you engage in an activity.
I once broke my leg so badly that the bone in my leg pierced through my skin. It was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. I screamed in pain while I waited for the ambulance to arrive. In the days and weeks that followed, I gained a new perspective on life, so that I was profoundly grateful for everything that I had. I was grateful for modern medicine and the “routine” surgery I had, I was grateful that my prey was microwavable, and I was grateful for the friends and family who took care of me while I healed. After that, I was more cautious. I don’t like the word “cautious” because it seems to fly in the face of adventure, and adventure sounds like a good time to me. But although I don’t like caution as much as adventure, I like caution way more than having my leg bone be outside of my leg. So, how did this happen?
This happened while I was playing soccer and it happened because I failed to ask myself and properly answer the question, “What is the worst thing that could happen in this situation?” My first mistake was not asking myself that question. My second mistake would have been not answering it correctly. If I had asked myself the question, “What is the worst thing that can happen while playing soccer today?”, my answer probably would have been, “My team loses.” But that’s not the right answer. I’m not sure what the injury rate of soccer is but from my experience, it’s about 1 in every 3 or 4 games that a player gets injured. So my answer to the worst-case scenario question should have been, “Someone gets injured, and that someone is me.” If I had I answered the question in that way, then I would have had a much better chance of not breaking my leg. I would have put myself in the position of caring more about my health and my leg than putting the little leather ball in the back of the net. I would have paid more attention to the 170-pound goalkeeper who was running full speed ahead towards me and the same ball that I was sprinting towards. I would have been more cautious.
While traveling in Nicaragua, my friend and I rented scooters to go around the island of Ometepe. It was hot, so I was wearing a T-shirt, boardshorts, and flip flops. The helmets they gave us were ineffective, blowing off of our heads as we sped along and staying on only from the neck strap under our chins. There were some speed bumps on the island, which were always preceded by signs that said there was a speed bump coming up. Except for one. I was going about 35-40 miles per hour when I encountered the unannounced speed bump. I started to brake but it was too little too late and the speed bump won. After I hit the speed bump, I lost my balance, lost the scooter, and hit the ground. With my face. When I had stopped tumbling along the pavement, I sat up and quickly took stock of my body. I felt more or less still in one piece. My head was okay. Thank goodness! My knee was bloody and in an incredible amount of pain and there was some blood on my shirt but I wasn’t sure that was coming from. People had seen me crash and one lady ran up to me and quickly gave me my wallet as if it were the most important thing in my life. I had never cared so little about money in my life. We cut the trip short and I flew home early to find out that I had broken my jaw in two places. The blood on my shirt had come from my chin, where it had smashed against the ground.
When I told this story to a friend of mine, he said that if you are going to hit your head on the ground, your chin is probably the best place to do it because it’s the part of your head that is farthest away from your brain. That is the kind of good thought that I’m not particularly good at having. I’m trying to get better at it now.
If you’re like me, then you won’t be quite as good at imagining the worst-case scenario as you think you are. So after you’ve imagined the worst-case scenario, add some buffer for the things that you didn’t imagine, because the worst-case scenario is probably even worse than what you have imagined. Some things are unimaginable and unforeseeable from your current vantage point. For instance, when I was talking to other people who had fallen of motor scooters, one guy told me that a similar thing had happened to him in Vietnam. He was riding along a dirt road when all of a sudden a water buffalo stepped onto the road and he crashed and fell trying to avoid it. Water buffalo. You probably didn’t think about them. So drive more slowly. In case of water buffalo, and anything else you forgot to imagine or couldn’t imagine. Those things are out there. When I told the workers at our hotel what had happened to me and how I had come across a speed bump that was not preceded by a sign saying that there was going to be a speed bump, they said: “Oh yeah, that one.” If I had been driving more slowly out of respect for all of the unannounced things that might pop up and interrupt my journey, I might not have fallen and crashed.
After I had the surgery to put my jaw back into place, my jaw was wired shut. Quick, what should I have done? Yes, I should have imagined the worst-case scenario for my new jaw-wired-shut situation. I didn’t or couldn’t but I appreciate that someone else had. When they sent me home from the hospital with my jaw wired shut, they gave me a pair of scissors. Can you guess what it was for? It was in case of an emergency. The emergency that I might have had was choking on my own vomit if I threw up. Yeah, throwing up while you’re mouth is wired shut sounds pretty bad. Choking and dying from your own throw up sounds even worse. So I carried a pair of wire-cutting scissors around with me in my back pocket for six weeks, grateful that someone with a better imagination than I had thought of the worse-case scenario.
There was a guy, Aron Ralston, who went rock climbing alone and got his hand pinned against a rock wall by a boulder that moved while he was climbing down it. He didn’t tell anyone that he was going hiking, so no one was going to look for him. He was stuck there for 5 days. He ate all of his food and drank all of his water. When he ran out of water, he drank his own urine. He thought he was going to die. He then realized that although he couldn’t move or break the boulder that trapped him, he could escape the boulder by cutting off his trapped arm with the small, dull knife he had. So that’s what he did. He cut off his arm to survive. Quite a story. They even made a movie about it. He probably couldn’t have known or foreseen that the boulder might move and trap his arm. That’s probably too much to expect. But if he had asked himself, “What’s the worst thing that can happen to me while hiking alone?” before going hiking alone, then he probably would have told someone where he was going, in case he got in a situation where he needed help. He probably couldn’t have predicted that the boulder would move in that awful way. But here is a safe prediction: Unforeseeable things will happen. And some of them will be bad.
None of this is meant to make you a doom and gloom sort of person. More often than not, bad things don’t happen. Boulders don’t move and bones don’t break. But I just want you to know this: The sound of risks being taken can be silent until it’s deafening.
There was another guy, Garry Hoy, who for some reason liked to throw himself against the very strong windows in his office building. He would bounce back and have a laugh with the onlookers. Until one day, when the window popped out of place and he went through the window and fell 24 stories and died. No one was laughing then. Tragic. Taking risks can be funny until it’s tragic. Please don’t be like that guy. What happened to him is awful and the most awful thing is how easily it could have been prevented. What is the question that he did he not ask himself or answer properly?—“What is the worst thing that can happen to me in this situation?”
Another thing to keep in mind is that when the worst-case scenario involves physical pain, put that in a special category. Treat that differently from worst-case scenarios that do not involve physical pain. They are two different kinds of consequences. Losing all your money is very different from having your head smashed or your arm chopped off. You can make more money later. You can’t unsmash your head or grow back your arm.
You can still be an adventurer. Caution isn’t the opposite of adventure. The opposite of being cautious is being reckless. There are cautious adventurers. A cautious adventurer is someone who jumps out of a plane with 2 parachutes strapped to her back instead of just one. A cautious adventurer is a race car driver who wears her seat belt, a helmet, and a flame retardant crash suit while she races. A cautious adventurer is someone who takes extra oxygen with her as she climbs Mount Everest, whether or not she uses it. Adventurers go places that other people won’t go and do things that other people won’t do. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t cautious. I imagine that most of them are very cautious.
I hope you can learn to take pre-cautions instead of post-cautions. My good friend cut himself badly on his surfboard fins while surfing and later when he went to the surf shop to replace his normal fins with safety fins, which are not as sharp, the shopkeeper said to him, “You must have cut yourself.” My friend asked, “Why do you say that?” and the shopkeeper replied, “Because the only people who buy those fins are people who have cut themselves.” That’s the wrong way around, isn’t it? So it’s hard for surfers to imagine cutting themselves on their fins before it happens. I hope you can be different. I hope you can see what might go wrong before it does go wrong. I also hope you browse the surf shop for safety equipment before you paddle away from the shore.
Tips
The main point is: Always ask yourself the question: “What is the worst thing that can happen to me in this situation?” Here are some tips for properly answering that question.
- Find out what the worst thing that’s happened to someone else doing the same thing is, in case that’s worse than the worst thing that you’re imagining can happen to you.
- When bodily harm is part of what can go wrong, put that in a different and special category and be extra careful.
- Add some extra buffer room for the unknown and the unforeseeable things that might happen.
- Because trains might be late, the power might go out, there might be a water buffalo, etc.
- Keep in mind that when things go badly wrong, it’s usually a combination of multiple things that go wrong.
- Here’s a mild example: There’s usually nothing wrong with being low on gas and nothing wrong with running 5 minutes late, but when you’re running 5 minutes late and rushing out the door and then you realize that you’re low on gas and need to put gas in the car on your way to your destination, then the 5 minutes late turns into 20 minutes late, which might be a bigger problem for you.
- Imagine different conditions and keep in mind that conditions can change.
- It might be sunny and clear and calm now but imagine how you might prepare differently for when it’s dark and rainy and windy. You might have no trouble finding your flashlight in the daytime but have some trouble finding it at night when your power’s out, which is when you really need to find it easily.
- I got into a hairy situation surfing one day which put me between the rocks and a hard place. The waves were pushing me towards the rocks and I couldn’t get past the waves. When I started surfing that day, the shore was sand, not rocks, but while I was in the water, conditions changed—the tide came in and the current pushed me south, so instead of the waves pushing me towards the sand where I had started, I was being pushed towards rocks that I hadn’t paid much attention to when I arrived. I sure was paying a lot of attention to them when I was right next to them. Not fun.
- Keep in mind that some things are irreversible.
- Be aware that some things are irreversible, and do your best to realize when you come across those things. When you do come across a decision or action that is irreversible, follow the carpenter’s advice: “Measure twice, cut once.”
Okay, so that’s my advice. Always ask yourself, “What is the worst thing that can happen?” In any given situation and be careful not to answer that question too quickly. You don’t want to find out that your answer was wrong when I did, while my bones and surfboard were breaking.
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