A Safe Bet

Perhaps you consider yourself a gambler and you know when to make bets on your game of choice. That is, if you have any degree of success in your games of chance. Though what if you were trying to bet on the future instead. Not a game of chance but the odds a bad storm lands on you, or the chance that a business deal falls through? Let’s work out these questions with some example scenarios.

Say there is indeed a wind or rainstorm occurring in a wooded area right when three different people are traveling through. A tree collapses on the road they plan to use before they arrive. The first person stops at the fallen tree in a rather expensive car. Armed with only a cellphone, they try to call for help only to be met with no service due to the awful storm. This person opts to wait out the storm in the comfort of their car, hoping to get help within a day since they lack a way to survive much longer than that.

The second person arrives at the fallen tree in a moderately priced car. With the same budget as the first person, they managed to prepare themselves for this situation with a few days worth of food and water to live off of and a blanket to warm themselves in their vehicle even if the storm brought cold winds or snow. Armed with a portable radio to boot, they can listen for reports about the storm even while their car is turned off to save their fuel so they can drive away after the tree is cleared by emergency services.

The third person arrives in a car cheap and nasty vehicle, even when compared to the second. Though instead of being stuck like the other two, they were able to afford a solution to the problem at hand. A chainsaw! Among other tools like an axe and winch, their vehicle is capable of handling almost any problem it encounters on the road, all for the same budget as the first car to arrive. There are many scenarios just like this one that can play out in life and you have to ask yourself which one of these three you would rather be.

Will it be the first? Who either decided they were too lucky for this problem to occur or simply didn’t care? The second? Who decided that it’s difficult to plan for everything so they made a simple solution that works with most? Or the third, who cares not about looks or comfort as much as obliterating any obstacle that gets in their way, like a chainsaw to a fallen tree?

Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something from my own lesson in life.