Today I was thinking about risk. The first question I have is: is there positive risk and negative risk? I am pretty sure that if I read a little bit about risk, I will find out that risk is risk, and its measurement is the probability of an event going one way or the other.
But then the first thing I read when I open the Wikipedia article is: “In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening.”
So, I guess that answers my question. Risk is negative.
Now, here is the reason I am writing this: Can positive risk be created?
Today I’ve been thinking about the concept of positive risk – the opposite of negative risk or risk alone (as we tend to consider risk).
What would positive risk look like? Can positive risk reduce the impact of negative risk? Can one increase the chances of getting positive risk? When I think of positive risk, I think of those actions or events whose outcome can either be neutral or positive.
If there is nothing to lose, then there is potential positive risk involved.
There are many ways to create potential positive risk, and most of them involve doing the opposite of what generates risk, or negative risk.
I will be thinking about this for a while. Right now, my head is mixing the concepts of risk and motion. I believe there is a connection between the two. While I am at it, here is a beautiful story about risk from Paul Graham.