Better Safe Than Sorry… Or Is It?

Everyone always says its better to be safe than sorry, and even though its not something I have actively tried to practice, after giving much thought to the issue, I found that I do practice it more than I thought 🙂

Now, this led me to ask the question. Is it actually better to be safe than sorry? Well, on the surface of the matter, if we just look at it from the direct meaning of the phrase the obvious answer is yes. Because it\’s definitely better to be safe than sorry. Like, it\’s better to look both ways before crossing the street  than to cross blindly and get knocked down and possibly killed no? I mean, you want to be able to say you did everything you could possibly do to be on the safe side of things yes?

But what if there’s more to it than that?

I am a thinker. I can think and worry for Africa. I mean, something as simple as “should I go to the shop” can become a complicated issue in my mind. Why? Well, because I’d rather be safe than sorry… I mean, what if I go and it’s super busy, cause you know, timing is everything with shopping! Or if I leave the house and it starts raining? Okay, maybe I should take an umbrella, but then the umbrella is just an extra thing for me to carry, okay, maybe I should wear my coat, but it’s too warm to wear a coat…  do you see where I’m going with this? I mean, it really shouldn’t be that complicated, but it does happen. LOL

Now, I’m pretty sure that seems like a silly example, but just think about it for a second, and think about the times you have done that in other situations. I mean, you want to be safe, you want to play the safe card, you want to be as prepared as you can be, so you plan for everything that can possibly go wrong and then some. But at the end of the day nothing goes wrong and chances are, you just caused yourself unnecessary stress and maybe didn’t even go through with it because the safer option appeared to be just not doing it…

I guess it is better to be safe than sorry, unless your being safe is making you sorry.

For every element of “safe” in your life, there should be room for spontaneous, room for excitement, because let’s face it, those things aren’t always safe.

The road less traveled is hardly ever safe. The road to achieving great things is hardly ever safe, because you have to put yourself out there. Put yourself in territory you have never been in. Territory that no matter how hard you try to prepare for will most likely still surprise you. I don’t think the road to greatness is safe.  But then, that’s my opinion.

I mean, there is nothing wrong with being safe, but being safe can have disadvantages, because often times, being safe is really fear hiding as caution.  So I guess before you claim to be “being safe than sorry” you should ask yourself if you’re just being scared. Because fear keeps us from attaining our full potential. But that’s a story for another day. Check out Why I Don’t Drive! for more on that!

At the end of the day it\’s good to be prepared. As prepared as we can possibly be, but stepping out and breaking new boundaries doesn’t really leave room for safe. It doesn’t really leave a lot of room for comfort or support or acceptance. It’s a space that is full of a lot of unknown and therefore has very little  room for safe.

So… Now I’m done writing and I’m asking myself if it is really better to be safe than sorry. My answer. Yea, it definitely is. But instead of phrasing it as being “safe than sorry” I’d rather phrase it as “it\’s better to be prepared than sorry” which I\’m pretty sure is what the phrase means in the first place! LOL, did you see what I did there? 

Before I drop my virtual pen, today I am thankful for nature. Thankful for sunrises that take your breathe away and remind you that there is definitely a God in Heaven, sunrises that leave the the sky looking so breathtaking you have to stop and take a picture, even though it\’s freezing outside! 🙂

Thank\’s for reading today\’s post! Don\’t forget to subscribe via email! The topic for this post was suggested by a friend, so if you\’d like me to write on something, please leave a comment in the comment box and I will work on it!