Why Take a Chance?

THERE is a spirit abroad, typified by the seemingly harmless phrase, “Why not take a chance?” This popular proposal has no doubt induced many people to gamble away many things, perhaps the least important of which is money. The spirit of gambling is a progressive thing. Usually it begins modestly; and then, like many other hazardous habits, it often grows beyond control. At best it wastes time and produces nothing. At worst it becomes a ruinous obsession and fosters false living by encouraging the futile belief that we can continually get something for nothing. The spirit of gambling also fosters the fallacy that the someone who loses is ultimately going to be someone other than ourselves. Gambling in its broadest and most harmful sense is, in truth, not gambling at all, but an absolute certainty_the certainty that sooner or later we shall lose. And when we gamble with things other than money or property_for example, with happiness or with health, with law or with life_our foolhardiness has then reached a reckless ripeness. Some are so foolish as to gamble with conscience. But no man ever won a gamble with his own conscience. Life is not a thing of chance, and there is no justification for living it as though it were. This is a universe of law and order, of cause and effect. Nature has a long memory, and we forfeit claims to happiness, to safety, and to protection when we take chances with anything, unnecessarily. There are some things we must venture, it is true. There are some necessary risks. And sometimes the outcome of what must be done cannot be known until it is done. But quite apart from this, there is an irresponsible spirit of gambling that has little or nothing in common with the legitimate and necessary ventures of life. And so, when we are tempted beyond sound judgment and safe reason by the disarming invitation, “Why not take a chance?” we would do well to give back the pertinent reply: “Why take a chance?”