Have you ever thought about how you manage risk? How risk averse are you? Do you take risks?
I have always been a risk taker. It is in my nature to try new things. I am energized and excited by new prospects.
But many people are risk averse. Risk is scary. Outcomes are unknown.
This past year and a half, I feel like we have been building our risk taking muscles.
You see everything was about the risk involved. Risk of going to shul, work or school in person. Risk of shopping in person and buying prepared foods. Risk of visiting family and friends or travelling.
Everything had a risk involved. And we became adept at taking calculated risks. How much risk is involved? Did the benefits of taking the risk outweigh the loss of not taking the risk? This became a daily conversation in our house for months with every activity we engaged in and decision we had to make.
I remember last year at the end of the school year (which was remote) when things still weren’t great, but definitely much better than they had been, and I asked our daughter’s gastroenterologist if we could send her to camp in person, as she was potentially in the high risk category. He looked at me and said, “Mrs.Morris, everything we do is a calculated risk. And right now taking the risk of her potentially getting sick with COVID was worth it for her to go to camp in person because the social and emotional gains of being in a “normal” environment with friends far outweighed the risk of potentially getting sick.” And so, gratefully, we sent her to camp, although it was still a calculated risk filled with concern every day.
These last few weekends have felt almost normal. We went to shul in person and without masks, at least those of us fully vaccinated. My husband gave his Drasha in Shul. We had an outdoor Kiddush with pre-prepared individualized treats. There were groups for the children and playdates in the afternoon with activities for children and families and a myriad of in person learning opportunities. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and life was feeling a little back to normal for our community.
But in reality, what is normal? We are not the same people we were before the pandemic. It is amazing how each of us has grown through this risk taking. We have all had to do and try new things way out of our comfort zone because of the pandemic! Whether it was working, teaching and/or learning remotely, learning new online platforms or even grocery shopping online! We had to reimagine shul going and multiple religious and social activities. We have had to adapt ourselves, and therefore, our skills due to adversity.
We have also built a tremendous Chessed muscle. I like to think we were always working on it, but this was like Chessed on steroids!
From adversity, we have grown. We have become stronger, more caring, resilient and even more capable of taking risks, although perhaps calculated ones!
I have yet to meet someone who does not have any kind of adversity in life. Keep in mind, what is challenging for me may be a piece of cake for you, and vice versa. But we all have it. We all have difficulties that we must overcome.
Adversity has the potential to bring us down and even destroy us, or if we calculate our risks and look at potential opportunities, we can grow from it and reach even greater heights than before.
I know this makes it sound potentially glorious and easy, but we all know it is anything but. Change is hard and taking risks are, well, risky!
We need strength and confidence to step into the opportunity and properly assess the risks in order to move forward and not get frozen in fear and anxiety.
Life is messy and complex and we are constantly calculating risks and assessing costs vs benefits. This is the boardroom of our life.
Moving into the coming year, Thank G-d with so much of regular life coming back to normal, it really won’t be the same normal as before. Rather it will be the new normal.
As a community and a people, we have grown and continue to grow even stronger each day.
I hope that we will continue to build our Chessed muscles along with our strength, faith and resilience in the face of adversity and continue to build up that risk taking muscle in order to promote our growth even further.