Life throws different shades at us and it leaves us to wonder if things are really in black and white. The truth is, it will not always be in black and white. Sometimes a shade of grey is all you need to pursue anything. If you keep waiting till the colour is distinct, you might end up waiting forever.
Some would say, is it not better to be sure before you dig in? If we keep waiting for certainty all the time, then words like ‘chance’ or ‘probability’ will not be in the dictionary. Taking calculative risk is healthy, especially when you have ran out of options and you have weighed the pros and cons.
Being a doctor has led me to see heroes every day of my life. Patients are heroes because they keep making the big decisions to stay alive. My encounter with patients each day has taught me that it is never enough to give up. You have to keep fighting till your last strength. A sickle cell patient who developed a condition called avascular necrosis of the femur head which was not redeemable with therapy. Her only option was surgery. Hip replacement surgery was her only bet and at the other hand, the surgery could place her at risk. She can become severely anemic and her organs could begin to fail. She said, “I understand the risks and I will do the surgery no matter how slim my chances of survival are”. The surgery was done and she survived. The surgery afforded her more time on earth to spend with her loved ones and teach her students. She might live for 5 years or more, but does that matter? What matters is surving with every opportunity she gets. Now the surgery could have gone wrong and she could have died on the operation table, well, that did not happen.
You might be a student reading this, and you feel that you cannot get into a top school, just because your grades are average. You never know until you try. So I would say write a catchy personal statement, tell your story, fill the application, hit that ‘submit’ button. Often times we do not know our own abilities, therefore we keep demoting ourselves. I always tell myself, “if it does not scare me, then it is not worth it’. Do not let fear grip you and hold you back, rather let it be the reason you keep trying till you get to your destination.
If I were you, I will way my options and make that investment. If you store all your money in the bank without investment, then one day you will wake up and see your money gone. The reason is because, there will always be inflation and devaluation of money, but if you have assets, then you can boost of having something. I will rather boost of owning a house than huge money in the bank. So here is the card, invest some of your money and save some of your money, in order words, you just need a balance. Get lawyers if you need to and buy that land, start that business, keep that company running, build that hospital or school. Just keep doing the things that scare you to become better.
There is a reason I call it ‘calculative risk’. In as much as you are taking a risk, be smart at it. Don’t go and have a baby when you know that you can barely feed yourself. Don’t go and start a business that you know nothing about. Businesses that we have first knowledge of could fail, let alone the ones we don’t know. Even as a student, while applying to top schools, still apply to average schools, just to have something to fall back to. Take the risk when there are no better options.
Do not disqualify yourself for that job until they disqualify you. Stretch yourself until you cannot be stretched anymore. The best advice is the one you give to yourself. If you say that you can, then you really can.
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