Reflections on risk

Whilst trying to navigate a path through the present lockdown I couldn’t help but wonder what my parents, long since departed, would have made of it. My old dad had many sayings, ‘expect nothing and you will never be disappointed’ was one of my favourites. Another, which I am sure he’d have brought out if he had still been alive today was, ‘Life is a terminal condition’. Depressing, fatalistic or pessimistic? Maybe, but he was right. In the words of another quote, often wrongly attributed but in fact from Nanea Hoffman of the blog Sweatpants & Coffee, ‘None of us are getting out of here alive …’. And so, with the panic buying, virus stockpiling, masks or no masks, fear and panic, it got me thinking about attitudes to risk.

Thirty-five years in the insurance industry and I often witnessed folk being on the wrong end of risk. Amongst friends and family I have a reputation for being risk averse – I always check a property location for risk of flooding, unplug all electronic devices at bedtime and refuse to operate the washing machine or dryer overnight. You see a tumble drier or a phone charger, I see the blackened charred floor joists, the soot-stained cracked glass of the photograph frames or the family mourning the loss of a beloved pet overcome by smoke whilst sleeping in the utility room. OK, I’ll accept that some of my aversions may not be logical; I won’t fly, despite knowing that statistically it is one of the safest forms of transport. When I used to drive fifty thousand miles a year on business I carried a one-in-eighteen-thousand chance of being killed or seriously injured in a road accident. That risk did not diminish with distance covered; it was reset every time the key turned in the ignition, but I never stopped driving; I thought I was in control.

I suppose that one of the most frustrating things about the current CV crisis is the lack of information upon which to base a decision. What exactly is the % risk of contracting the virus? How likely are you to pick it up in the supermarket? What about from the shopping? Are parcel deliveries safe? The vast majority of experts seem to be saying that the latter three activities present a low level of risk – they’re the only ones I’m prepared to take at the moment, although I still feel edgy on our weekly trips to Sainsburys. If I can’t evaluate the risk, what am I left with? Fear and uncertainty, a feeling I am sure is shared by many.

At the time of writing this post, the UK authorities don’t seem to have a handle on the extent of infection throughout the population. I’m not sure they’re even in control of the situation. There’s a lot of modelling going on, but real assessment of risk requires data, and data needs to be built up over a long period of time. Going back to insurance, the underwriter knows what the probability of your house catching fire is (it might be greater than you think – 1/3000: 0.125%), and that enables the insurance company to decide whether or not they will sell you a policy and how much they will charge for the privilege. In the future, no doubt, statistics will enable us to put the current crisis into greater perspective but at the moment it feels like the house is burning down.

Lately I’ve been struggling with this lack of perspective. As I wrote last week, I wanted to write about my reflections on risk to try to clarify and crystallise my thoughts but it was too difficult. Writing usually helps, but this time it did not and left a blank blog week. I know that I am not alone in feeling the stress of this crisis. Although the isolation aspect does not bother me, rather I relish it, the uncertainty about how long it will last, whether it will ever go away, and what will the new normal look like are very real concerns.

The best advice I have seen for rationalising the situation is to keep calm, do all that is practicable to stay safe and not over-analyse it (something I am often guilty of). So, I was really grateful to discover Esther Ekhart’s YouTube live yoga and meditation practices, ‘Finding Resilience Together’. Yoga has been keeping me grounded these past few weeks and I’ve combined these daily live sessions joined by people from all around the world with my usually Yoga with Adriene challenges. Tune in if you can (4pm BST, weekdays) – you don’t need to know anything about yoga. Going back to Esther, I hold the words of her first meditation in mind. We all fear a loss of control, but what we forget is that we were never really in control anyway. It was just a perception of control. Life can change in an instant. The key is to be in the present moment, it is the only time that ever really exists.