Not only is this fun, it’s good for me. Experts who have studied risk taking say it develops character and courage, extends creativity, boosts confidence and helps establish a sense of limitations and possibilities. They say that if you don’t allow yourself some conscious risks, you may be more likely to take unconscious ones such as driving too fast, drinking too much, picking fights or gambling away money, relationships or a job.
“It’s important ot take risks to experience life,” says Frank Farley, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin. “If you don’t expose yourself to new experiences and new ideas, you remain the same. And change is a very important part of personal growth.”
Dr. Farley, who coined the term T-Type personality ot describe people who love risks, says you don’t have to run out and sign up for a course in rattlesnake wrestling to get a charge. “Anytime you can overcome a fear or meet a challenge and not run from it, it strengthens you as a person,” he says. Dr. Farley considers healthy risk taking to be anything to which the outcome is uncertain. This includes not only obvious stuff like bungee jumping and rock climbing but also psychological and financial risks like starting a business investing in he stock market or changing careers.
In fact, only the risk taker himself can determine what’s risky. Some of us choose to take risks in one part of our lives but not in another. The defining element is fear. There’s no thrill-and no real risk-without that. When Phillipe Petit, the acrobat who walked a wire between the World Trade Center towers, was asked about his feat, he said that balancing 110 stories above ground without a net wasn’t all that scary for him.
What did he consider risky?
Spiders, snakes…and getting married, he replied. He’d rather do 10,000 backward somersaults on a high wire than get married and have kids.
