Better Safe than Sorry

I hear it all the time.

It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Kid comes into the ER. He looks great after a fall. I advise against a CT scan of the head. The parents look at me with as much respect as they can muster. “We’d like the CT anyway. We’d rather be safe than sorry.”

Really?

Better safe than sorry?

And expose your kid to unnecessary radiation, risking cancer over the increased lifetime exposure?

You decide against the risky investment. You’d rather be safe than sorry. And you lose the chance of buying google stock at $30 a share.

Better safe than sorry.

You opt against taking that mission trip to sudan. You’ve heard there’s an outbreak of TB.

It’s true. You end up a little bit safer. And absolutely useless on a global scale.

At the end of the day, safe is safe. It’s comfortable. It’s warm and fuzzy. And it leaves you unchanged and unharmed.

But to make a real difference in the world, sometimes you have to risk being sorry.

In the process, you may find yourself free.

In the process, you may find yourself happy.

And in the end, safe often ends up sorry.

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