The article "Teen Brain Wired to Take Risks" published by Discovery News explores why teenagers are more likely to take risks and what actually happens biologically that makes risk taking so attractive to teenagers. In a nutshell, research shows that the brain of the teenager is more sensitive to everyday responses than the brain of an adult. This means that teenagers experience a greater feeling of pleasure when something unexpectedly good happens than adults do. Inversely, teenagers also experience a greater feeling of depression when something unexpectedly bad happens. The “reward” which teenagers get from taking risks, is what compels them to continue taking risks, it is not a matter of teens not thinking before taking a risk, but a fact that they think the reward they will achieve will outweigh the consequences of the act itself. This reasoning is what sometime gets teens a little carried away with their risk taking, which can eventually turn life-threatening in some cases.
When I take a risk, it is not that I do not think about my actions going wrong or the consequences of the action being “not worth it,” But surprisingly it is the opposite. Whenever I take a risk of a larger magnitude, I find that I stop myself and contemplate several scenarios which could result from my actions. But in the end I do usually end up choosing the option which requires me to sometimes take a significant risk. Also, I feel that it is the excitement and thrill of breaking rules and the anticipation of the reward that overpower the common sense and reason in the mind of a teenager and compel him to sometimes act rashly. But here is where I think I try to do things differently. I feel that over-thinking about taking a risk or not sometimes defeats the purpose of taking the risk, it defeats the purpose of some risks being spontaneous. Therefore, although I automatically start considering scenarios of the risk I am about to take in my mind, I try to stop myself from doing so to add more of a thrill, more impulsiveness to the risk I am taking. Because in that way the reward of taking the risk usually turns out to be greater than if everything was planned, thought out, and already “taken care of.” It makes the risk I am taking more interesting because it also helps me to figure out what sort of a person I am and how I would act under impulsive situations.
I think that sounds pretty normal, but remember enjoying the heightened sense of risk is playing with fire. If you know you should think it through better, but don't then the outcome could be much greater than you anticipated and even tragic. There is a reason that adults learn to be more staid, and that many of us even grow to be an adult. My husband always liked to fly with older pilots in Alaska for that exact reason. Strong writing. I like what you are doing with these and you are following the instructions very well!!
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