Max Gutmann shares how a true risk is worth the reward.
At the beginning of 1994, I made a New Year’s Resolution that changed my life. I resolved to take at least one risk each week. At the time, I might have struggled to find Hungary on a map. By the end of the year, I was living there. During nine years in Hungary, I learned a language, wrote more than I ever had, taught English to Bosnian war refugees, helping some of them emigrate to English-speaking countries, gathered the closest circle of friends I’ve ever been part of and met the wonderful Hungarian woman I married. But the resolution didn’t start out promisingly.
After a couple of months, I could see that my weekly risk wasn’t changing my comfortable rut. I started to wonder whether the problem might be my way of thinking about risk. A risk, I had assumed, was something I could fail at. That I was failing most weeks wasn’t the problem.
But seeking out failure wasn’t doing me much good. Young and single at the time, this is how I explained it to myself:
If I stop an attractive stranger on the street and ask her out, that feels like a risk. I can fail at that. But what would I be failing at? She doesn’t know me, so her rejection doesn’t mean much. On the other hand, If I’ve enjoyed flirting with a pretty neighbor, asking her out is a true risk.
Showing up for a test I haven’t studied for is a sort of a risk, but I can shrug off a bad result. Studying and doing as well as I’m able is the true test, the true risk. To risk, you have to be invested.