Dumb Risks

President Faust gave a talk in Priesthood session where he warned the young men about taking foolish risks.

Why did he jump [from an 80 foot cliff into the water]? What was he trying to prove? The young men who dared him didn’t care and probably don’t even remember that foolish act. But Kieth realized afterward that he had made what could easily have been a fatal decision. He had yielded to the pressure of friends expecting him to do what he didn’t want to do. He knew better. He said: “I was living in the world, and at that moment I was of the world because I was not in control of myself. I was not making decisions about my own life. The world made the decisions for me, … and [I] had barely avoided being in the world about six feet deep.”

A story on NPR this week illustrated the result of such decisions. An extreme skier, whose goal it was to be first person to ski backcountry mountain slopes, died at the age of 48. Not a bad old age for such a risky sport as the commentator seems to admit. The sad part is that he was not a bachelor. He left behind a two year old child. A child that must grow up fatherless because his father thought seeking thrills was being productive. I'm not convinced.