THERE’S an old saying that the man who never did anything wrong never did anything right, either – because he never did anything at all.
It chimes in with some advice I got many years ago when I was first entrusted with extra responsibilities in the police force.
I was told that a refusal to take risks is often the riskiest course of all. As the years go by, those words echo in my head with increasing strength and frequency.
A little while back I attended a sports day at a pleasant and successful school. As the proceedings came to a close, I said that I was surprised there hadn’t been that traditional cause of merriment and embarrassment, the parents’ race.
Predictably, given the times we live in, the answer came that it had been cancelled in case a parent who hurt themselves might sue I don’t blame the school for this state of affairs.
Nor do I blame the many, sensible, professional practitioners of health and safety.
When I have met and talked with them they have struck me as practical and well-intentioned people who see their job as helping organisations get on with their jobs safely and efficiently. They are not the caricature killjoys of the tabloid media.
Quite simply, if you want to know who to blame, look in the mirror.
We ourselves have created this risk-averse culture, where there’s always someone else to blame. It is stifling creativity, enjoyment and if we’re not careful, loosening the bonds that keep our society together.
The chances of someone injuring themselves during some harmless bit of fun at a school sports day, village fete or similar are slim.
Slimmer still are the chances that someone getting hurt would have a case to take to court. Not every trip or slip guarantees a fat cheque.
What really puts off organisers of these events is the nagging worry that if something does go wrong, there’ll be a lot of unpleasant fuss, accusations of sloppiness, headlines, enough bad blood to last a lifetime and, of course, that other curse of modern life the “internal inquiry”.
All this arises because we don’t accept that some activities – a majority even – do carry risk. It’s up to us as individuals – not someone else – to make a decision whether the risk is reasonable. Sadly, the idea of an acceptable risk seems to have disappeared. Likewise, we have become incapable of understanding that people and organisations are capable of making honest mistakes.
So we can go down the route of creating rules and regulations for every activity known to mankind and indulging in witchhunts and finger-wagging every time something goes wrong. Or we could get out of the playground and into the real world of giveand- take where mistakes encourage us to learn, not litigate. I know which is the saner, and ultimately safer choice.
TWO items caught my attention on the news the other night. The first was that astronomers have found evidence of a huge collsion between galaxies hundreds of millions of years ago. The discovery may help us understand the nature of dark matter and so greatly advance our understanding of life and the birth of the universe.
The second was the appointment of Andre Villa Boas as Chelsea manger.
No prizes for guessing which story got more prominence. We certainly know our priorities.
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