Anything worth doing in life has risk.
That's been my observation.
If you want to learn to walk, like most of us
did when we were little, that had risk.
When I was learning to walk, when
I was just a little over a year old, I fell.
We were living in an apartment that had a concrete floor.
I fell and banged my head on the floor
and actually cracked my skull.
But I needed to learn to walk.
And even though no one had explained it to me,
even at that stage, biology and evolution and the world
around me had put me in a position
where learning to walk, which is dangerous, was worth doing.
As an astronaut, that sort of becomes your life.
You say, this is a dangerous job.
Flying a rocket ship kills people.
Flying the jet aircraft that we use
to train to fly rocket ships--
that kills people.
We've had people die underwater training to do spacewalks.
It's a dangerous profession.
But much like learning to walk or learning
to ride a bike, if you can gain this skill,
if you can do this thing, then maybe those risks
are worth taking.
And in my case, I decided a long time ago
that exploring the rest of the universe
was worth taking a risk for.
To me, that's a worthy thing.
I'm willing to change who I am.
I'm not just a person who is blindly taking a risk.
But I am, instead, a calculating,
thinking human who is trying to do something that we haven't
done before and figure out how I can defeat the risk, how I can
beat the danger and put us in a new place,
get to that new place safely, come out the other side
without a cracked head.
I like what that does, actually, in that if you say, "I'm
going to take a risk because it's worth it",
that changes your part.
You aren't a spectator.
You're not a passenger.
You are now part of the process by which you're
going to defeat that risk.
You don't have to feel afraid.
Instead, you can sort of feel, like,
motivated to solve the problems.
You're part of this thing, trying to make this happen.
So that when I walk out to a rocket ship
and I'm about to get in, I know it's dangerous.
I've been thinking about the danger of it
for years and years.
But I no longer have to feel afraid.
That's not the only defense mechanism that I have.
I've been working on this thing so long,
and my job has not been to sit there and cross my fingers
and hope.
My job is now to pilot this thing, or at least
to be part of the flight crew on board,
and safely defeat the risk, get out the other side of it
with success.
And I sort of treat everything in my life that way.
What is it that I think is worth doing?
What are the risks involved?
And how can I address the actual risks
so that I can achieve the things that I think are important?
No astronaut launches for space with their fingers crossed.
That's not how we deal with risk.
We don't just take it as somebody else's problem.
We are ready to confront the risk head on and recognize
that there is a difference between danger and fear.
They're not synonymous.
So many people ask--
because in English, it's sort of crept in--
oh, that must be a scary thing.
And things aren't scary.
People are scared.
It's different.
The thing is just the thing.
Whether you choose to be scared--
some people are afraid of spiders.
Some people are afraid of mirrors.
Some people are afraid of open spaces, confined spaces.
But that's just your reaction to a thing that exists.
You can choose to be afraid or not.
And if it makes you afraid, why?
Why does this make me fearful?
Maybe there's a danger there I shouldn't be confronting.
I am never going to be a tightrope walker.
To me, there's so much danger in walking down
a tightrope and so little benefit to getting
across the tightrope that it's not a risk I'm willing to take.
It's a real danger.
I can feel the fear of doing it, and the fear
warns me that this is a danger that I don't
want to subject myself to.
But there's lots of other risks in life
that I do think are worthwhile.
And the real, I think, important step in life
is to identify, what are the risks worth taking?
If they do make you afraid, why?
Because that's probably an indicator
that you haven't learned how to do what it is you
need to do yet.
And then start changing who you are.
Gain your skill.
The best antidote for fear is competence.
If you can make yourself competent,
then you're not just relying on fear,
but you're actually a person who can do this thing.
And if you're competent, then not only can you do this thing,
but you can relax while you're doing it.
You can look around.
You can notice how cool this thing is.
This dangerous thing that's happening, I got this.
I know how to do this thing.
I am not just a chihuahua shaking away,
hoping that this problem will disappear without killing me.
Instead, you're a functioning, thriving
human being in the middle of something amazing,
and you have turned yourself into somebody
who can truly appreciate it.
To me, that's how you should deal with risk.
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