About ten years ago, a colleague of mine was diagnosed with cancer. He was my age, and the illness was definitely life-threatening. It made me sit down and reevaluate what I was doing with my life, and I made the decision then that putting things off for later could easily result in never doing them at all, because later doesn't always come for all of us. So I've tried to do as much NOW as I can do in a responsible fashion.
At the same time, I think Scuba said it well . . . when you engage in activities with a real possibility of injury, you have to decide whether the joy from the activity is worth the risk you take. I gave up skiing after the third broken bone because I simply didn't love skiing enough to keep breaking things doing it. On the other hand, I still ride horses, and I've had many more fractures as a result of doing that -- but I love it enough to make the risk worth while, and I have revised what I do to try to reduce the risk. (I no longer break horses, for example.)
I've fallen so in love with diving that I'm willing to assume the risks that go along with doing it. At the same time, I've taken steps to mitigate the risks I can. Statistically, I'm probably still more likely to get killed on the highway, anyway
At the same time, I think Scuba said it well . . . when you engage in activities with a real possibility of injury, you have to decide whether the joy from the activity is worth the risk you take. I gave up skiing after the third broken bone because I simply didn't love skiing enough to keep breaking things doing it. On the other hand, I still ride horses, and I've had many more fractures as a result of doing that -- but I love it enough to make the risk worth while, and I have revised what I do to try to reduce the risk. (I no longer break horses, for example.)
I've fallen so in love with diving that I'm willing to assume the risks that go along with doing it. At the same time, I've taken steps to mitigate the risks I can. Statistically, I'm probably still more likely to get killed on the highway, anyway