While I am a perpetual optimist, my wife seems to bring good balance to our relationship. I assume my kids will learn if they fall off something and hurt themselves. She assumes (1) that they will fall, and (2) that they will hurt themselves, and (3) the injury will be really bad, and (4) it'll probably be really costly, and (5) we'll have to add more money to the (still conceptual) counseling fund to help them deal with the long-term issues.
I think she innately understands risk, while I have to work at it.
So, what's risk? Well, for anything we do, there's a chance that something bad (or undesirable) will happen. Wake up in the morning, open your eyes, and it all begins... well, "it" actually never stopped.
My wife has fears (for good reason, having grown up in the Caribbean) of hurricanes, drivers on icy roads, being bit by a spider at night, putting her feet in her shoes and finding a centipede... not much nicer than fearing a scorpion.
So, when I'm asked if it's risky to do something, I'll often reply that "risky" refers to a scale... and it's much easier to measure "risky" on a scale of 1 to 10. That scale should probably be the multiplier for how much money I put in the counseling fund.
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