What is risk?
How do you evaluate risk in your everyday life? What is the perceived risk of any particular activity? What is the observed risk?
For activities that are not "everyday", how does one evaluate risk? Does human judgement work when risks move from "slight" to "highly unlikely" to "nearly impossible"? When perceived odds move from 1/10,000 to 1/1,000,000?
These questions have been running through Lucky's mind all week long, ever since he made a serious error in judgement which resulted in another person's serious injury. Lucky normally enjoys making mistakes, through which he learns, but when other have to pay the price for such knowledge, the cost is close to unbearable.
There is some possibility that he suffers from hindsight bias. Indeed, there is certainly an element of bias involved, but not enough to grant absolution. The errors were real, as real as the consequences.
Each day, he replays the sequence of events that led to a week-long hospital stay by someone who trusted him. There is nothing worse than being responsible for someone else's injury; nothing. Lucky has not felt this bad in years; decades even.
There are those who say that it was a freak event, that it was an accident, and that no-one can be held responsible. This is nonsense. Lucky was there and only he knows what transpired. That others think that a freak event should absolve one of responsibility is something that he does not understand. Perhaps they cannot handle the fact that a friend has done something horribly wrong? Surely there is an aspect of psychological denial present in this response.
People also believe that extremely unlikely events are more unlikely than they actually are. This is leptokurtosis and has been studied in financial markets. Is this relevant? It's hard to say; but Lucky thinks that most people couldn't quantify the adjective "freak", perfect storms notwithstanding...
So the problem remains: how to deal with a horrific accident for which one is responsible. Not legally responsible; but rather morally responsible. And how to do it in a context where the person who was injured thinks it was their fault? It would be comic were it not so utterly tragic.
If one more person says, "Don't be so hard on yourself," there will be another hospitalisation, I fear...
There is an inherent risk in living. Each day, every single thing you do has an associated risk with it, however small. Elimination of risk would mean elimination of life, and all the joys and pains that come with it. Perhaps we shouldn't be so surprised when, in pursuit of happiness, we encounter adverse consequences. It should be expected, though that will not make it sting any less. And if others must suffer losses, we can endeavour to make their lives easier in any way we can.
Lucky wonders if the pain at seeing other's suffering will make him a better or worse manager. Will it make him less likely to act decisively when others' lives are on the line? Will loss avoidance make him miss the big picture for comparatively small potatoes? So much to think about, all inspired by a series of small decisions which seemed so innocuous at the time, yet whose aftermath was so gigantic.
5:58:31 PM 
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