Risk versus Reward

There is a lot of risk vs reward speak in security discourse, a lot of threat to benefit ratios requested to justify staying in a high risk environment, basically – is it worth it? It is interesting when professional life mirrors personal life; how you can apply a professional equation to your heart. Living in that place (that I have now left but left behind loved ones) over the past few years it was necessary to assess the benefit of the work we did there in balance with the risk we took in remaining there to do it. Was it worth it? I believed so, I did and do believe that we were able to contribute and we, me and my organisation and my friends in other organisations, accepted those risks in an informed manner and stepped out in faith and some mustered courage.

As I have known before and perhaps even commented that the more you take risks and step out into the unknown the more you are able to do it because you learn how to assess what is before you and you learn that life and loves and faith are able to support you so much more than a protected life will show.

Personally speaking the question of risk versus reward is also apparent and I have oft asked – is it worth it? Previously the answer has been in the negative but my assessment of my current state of life and those who are the prime players in it with me, causes me to take some of the greatest risks of my life in the belief that if things work out the reward could be unquestionably worth it. Of course as they have yet to work out the risks I am taking seem large and weighty and the losses very painful to bear if the reward never comes.

But having said that, that is to look merely at the outcome and not at the process. We are all on a journey and the journey is rewarding in and of itself and the outcome of the ending is the ultimate reward. It is in the process that we, I, learned so much about myself, others, life, love and faith and I am able to say that I would not undo the pain and strife that I have been through over the past years if it also meant that I had to relinquish the lessons I have learned; they have been treasures found in dark places, but their sweetness is second to none for having sweated so hard to reach them, for having stepped out in faith with no real sense of what was before me but trusting in the One who asked it of me and what I found, what I was given, was beyond my imagination. I am still on this particular journey and there may be an end in sight though it may or may not be the preferred one but the pleasures of the journeying are manifold nonetheless.


Enjoy the journey.