The near miss will eventually kill you
People still text and drive. They drink and drive. Why? Is this some kind of mental illness or a death wish? No, it’s being human. We’re risk takers and sometimes, we don’t appreciate the consequences. The way in which we process information about risk makes it difficult for us to understand the true price of the consequences. When we think that we’ll get away with it, whatever it is, we engage in optimism bias also known as the “near miss” bias. We’ve driven hundreds of times and texted our friends as we went along. We’ve had a little too much to drink so many times and still got home without killing anybody that we ignore the fact those good outcomes, well, they were partially due to luck. You can’t buy luck, but you can reduce your need to rely on dumb luck, by being aware of how you’re thinking about taking risks and be smarter.
