Men like taking risks then wonder why they die earlier than women

Men like taking risks. That’s a fact. They take risks when  learning, playing, sitting and even sleeping. In fact, they do it all the time.

I am guilty of a few sins myself. No wonder we die early, right? I guess you have heard of men sitting in the bathtub with laptops connected to electricity, or men sitting on top of moving trains, buses, cars, or falling asleep behind the wheel, etc.? Women don’t do that. At least, it’s on rare occasions that you hear of women taking such risks. They know better and God rewards them with a longer life, which is fair. I guess they deserve the long life since they take good care of it.

When travelling with children, taking risks is one thing you want to avoid. Especially when you are far from home. If you do want to risk your life, do it closer to home and spare the family the trouble of having to bring you home on a stretcher. That’s why I advise men to listen to their wives when travelling with the whole family. Here is a real life story just to make the point clear. I promise it won’t be gruesome. 

Example of how men like taking risks

One day while on holiday in Zimbabwe, we decided to go to a small national park just outside the capital city, Harare. As we were getting close to the park, my wife said we didn’t have enough petrol and we should fill up before we drove in. I should have listened, but I didn’t. I regret. Being the risk-taking man that I am, I said don’t worry we have enough petrol, but I was wrong. If only I had listened. Anyway, after an hour or two of driving in the park, I had to accept that we didn’t have enough fuel. So I told my wife that I think we should go and buy some petrol and then come back to the park, which she agreed to. But not without some shouting and the normal “I told you so” that I have grown used to. I mentioned that I have committed a few sins myself, didn’t I?

Anyway, we drove out of the national park and a kilometre or so later, the car came to a sudden stop. We had run out of fuel. I don’t even want you to imagine the rage that my wife went through. That would be too painful. Take it from me, it wasn’t a pleasant scene. And all because I decided to take an unnecessary risk. What would have happened if we had filled up before driving into the park? Completely nothing. Probably the whole family would have enjoyed the day and have something pleasant to remember.

The struggle to find a container

With the situation as it was, I had to leave the whole family in the car, walk to the nearest main road, hitchhike to the nearest fuel station, spend lots of time looking for a container. It’s Africa. Things like containers don’t lie around waiting for people like me to come along. Everything is reused. You can’t even buy some things even if you wanted to. After some searching, bargaining and begging I managed to buy some fuel and then had to retrace my steps back to the car where the whole family was waiting getting more and more angry as time passed. The famous African sun was shining, but in moments like this when you have no air-conditioning, you can be forgiven for not noticing its beauty. All in all, it took me 3 hours to arrange and bring the fuel back. All because I had decided to take an unnecessary risk. I won’t even mention the fact that the car completely broke down later when we were on our way home and we had to be towed or the fact that we didn’t manage to go back to the park as we had planned to. It was a terrible day all round.

As they say, every cloud has a silver lining. I learnt my lesson. I will not take unnecessary risks when travelling with my family. Not even the smallest ones.

I also learnt that women are sometimes right.