"At Risk"

I was trained as a demographer, someone who studies aggregate population trends. One of the key points in demographic methods is understanding rates--rates of change, prevalence rates, incidence rates....We spend a lot of time talking about who in the population is "at risk" of experiencing some event. So, for instance, only those who are currently married are at risk of divorce or widowhood. Only those who are currently unmarried are at risk of marriaged. We are all at risk of dying (one of the reasons I decided to study mortality was that it was so straightforward--easy to measure.) Who is at risk of dropping out of high school? High school students. You get the point.

But the term "at risk" can be more tricky. Are the only people at risk of being happy those who are currently unhappy? Are the only people at risk of being helped those who are currently living with unmet needs? We are all at risk of some events in life over which we have virtually no control...someone else's death, someone else's birth, someone else's marriage. Can we control the risks to which we are exposed? To some extent. We can avoid dangerous people, places, and things. Can we also put ourselves in the position to experience positive events? Not by avoiding people, places and things, but by seeking them out?