The funny thing is, I used to be very risk-averse, just in general, both personally and professionally.

But after working in risk management for a couple years, I experienced a real shift in my thinking and actions. Today I would describe myself as “risk-conscious”, but not risk -averse in the way I used to be.

The (in hindsight) very basic concept of graphing out severity vs. probability had a big impact on me, not just in how I thought about risk but how I felt about it.

It seems paradoxical, but the more I’ve learned about risk, the more willing I’ve become to take risks.

On the other hand, I’ve become very much more aware of how much risk we all live inside of every day, how many safety nets are built into our society that most people just take for granted, and how suddenly and severely some vulnerabilities can turn into consequences. Sometimes I feel like everyone around me must be going through life with blinders on (although that is a mental trap of the “I am very smart” variety).

It is a fucking wonder that you can go to a second-hand store, buy a 50-year-old lamp, take it home and plug it into a socket, and not have your house burst into flames or wake up in an emergency room after getting your heart stopped by an electric shock, or have the local transformer set your neighborhood on fire. The amount of work that is being done to manage risks around all of us, to the point that the relevant activities seem mundane, is just crazy.

The people that spend their time thinking about and writing down and implementing safety standards (that is, managing risk) deserve a lot more appreciation from all of us.