A risk to regret

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.

I’ve noticed that the two most common sources of regret for my last 20-30 years of experience are:

  • Missed opportunities
  • Coulda/Woulda/Shoulda thinking when a disaster strikes and I didn’t see it coming

The risks taken that paid off – what would I regret? For example, when taking my first mortgage, it felt like a great risk. The payment was a significant portion of my salary at the time, the period was long, and the apartment we bought was not great but we couldn’t afford anything better. The interest rate was high, and the seller had some non-disclosed debt and some people wanted their money back. It ended up fine, we renovated the property over the years and resolved the issues. Turned it into a home.

When I take a risk that doesn’t pay off, I also seem to not regret it if it was a deliberate informed choice taken without influence. I stopped insuring my previous car for theft and accidents. It got stolen. The saved premiums for 3 or 4 years didn’t cover the loss of value. Did I have regrets? I didn’t. I made a choice based on the amount of time I lost each year to deal with things like paint damage and vandalism. Covering the cost myself would’ve been cheaper and quicker than going through the insurer and the police on every occurrence. The same happened with previous vehicles, none of which were stolen. It didn’t pay off last time but I felt zero regret because it felt like it was an expected, although unlikely result of my math.

Most of the time when I felt regret, I didn’t see the negative outcome coming at all even if there were obvious signs in retrospect. For example, I played basketball. A second later I was on the ground with a dislocated knee. I didn’t see it coming. Lots of coulda/woulda/shoulda followed. However, the outcome was predictable, and the risk was taken when I agreed to play with unfamiliar clumsy kids. I blogged about bias, assumptions, and intuition, a couple of times this year.

Desert Fire

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

The character is a freelance tank driver, roaming the desert with the tank on a square map. He enters a competition. What does he need to do? Solve a bunch of riddles! Anagrams, basic math, and the music kids listened to in the 80s.

Here’s a riddle from the book.

You have two 6-side dice. What’s the odd for one dice to show 6 and the other to show an even number?

I’ll try to finish the book later this week. After this question, my tank was disqualified because I couldn’t find the solution I knew from playing Backgammon as a child.

Stephanie Plum – Lean Mean Thirteen

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

This book was unremarkable in the beginning but then very satisfying in many ways until the end. I enjoyed the exploding taxidermy and the overall improved independence of Stephanie. She is chasing a criminal mystery because she could be framed for murder. She does it, not Ranger.

I’m not done with the series. Part 13 was nice and refreshing.

4/5

The Horseman of the Apocalypse by Lubomir Nikolov

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

I got a surprise new book. This one was sent to me by the publisher. I was pleasantly surprised and will write a review once I reread it. I’m very thankful for the nice surprise!

I find it very nice that people are republishing these old books. The old ones are collectibles and published with cheap paper so thin that you feel they’ll fall apart if you touch them. The new ones have a great quality and feel.

The previous edition (on the left) features me with this crossword puzzle:

I was about 16 when I did this creation. Can’t imagine solving it, it’s full of untraceable terminology from gamebooks. It says that there are only 2 squares that can’t be filled by using gamebook terms. Perhaps that’d be the 2 squares I’ll fill with my present-day knowledge.