You are NOT safe. You weren’t safe when you were a child, you aren’t safe now and you’re NEVER going to be safe. You could die in the next 5 minutes of an undiagnosed heart defect. You could walk into your kitchen, trip over a bone your dog left on the floor, crack your head on a countertop, and die right there on the floor. Your house could catch on fire, a plane could crash into it, or a gang of hired killers could break in and torture you to death because they confused you with a drug dealer down the street who has a similar name.
Put simply, there is no such thing as a risk-free life because you are literally ALWAYS at risk. That’s why it’s extremely important to be able to assess that risk.
Human beings, myself included sometimes, often do a terrible job of this for five reasons:
#1) We have a tendency to overvalue short term pleasure and undervalue long-term pain: Why do people take meth? Why do alcoholics take a drink when they know they shouldn’t? Why did I eat a slice of cake on my birthday when I am overweight? Because in our minds, the desire for the immediate reward is huge and bright while the long-term consequences are small and dim.