Don’t be careless, life is too precious for taking any risk

During a recent overseas journey, an air hostess cautioned me to be careful. She was afraid I could slip and fall as I was climbing up the plane’s stairs at a ‘hurricane speed’. I did not realise that until I was reminded of the ‘fact’, and wondered whether I was really being careless, now that I am well past my youthful, energetic days.

True, carelessness on our part either brings loss or spoils any effort in achieving certain goals. In today’s insane rat race, a little carelessness on our part may make the whole difference between success and failure. American actress Brooke Hayward says this in her book Haywire: “This book is a personal memoir; but it is also a larger story — about carelessness and guilt and the wreckage they can make of lives.”

And yet, most of us, most of the time, are quite careless. Why? One basic reason could be lack of motivation.

It is also found that carelessness is a direct outcome of your being overconfident, a characteristic that will nail you down sooner or later. Of course, there are many situations wherein exceptions to the rule may prove of great advantage to you. In such cases, it is always good to be ‘carefully careless’, a phrase I had coined several years ago.

But, I must say with conviction, the fact is that only carefulness helps us go around doing great things in life.

Life’s great journey is not to be tossed around by being careless as it is too precious for taking any risk. And, I always try to remind myself to be careful and go steadily ahead. After all, let us tell the naysayers, that being careful will never let us down in our life’s mission on this lovely planet.