No Lower Limit for Anything

Have you heard the news? There are new and lower limits for drinking alcoholic drinks. There’s no lower limit for drinking alcohol. We’ve heard this before. Now, there’s an increased risk for drinking even small amounts of alcohol. In fact, there’s no lower limit for anything. Chocolate cake is the usual example. Eating chocolate cake may lead to obesity, after all.

In fact, everything we do has an associated risk. The risk mentioned is the risk of disease, or the risk of early death. It may be known and specific, such as lung cancer caused by smoking. On the other hand, the risk may be unknown or general. It’s impossible to give an example in this case. The best we can do is “unhealthy behavior”.

Keep in mind that its impossible to reduce the risk to zero. You might think that you could stay at home, to reduce the risk of catching COVID-19 to zero, but your house might burn down with you inside. There’s always a risk.

Instead, you must decide what risk is acceptable to you. This mean comparing risks, but also evaluating the benefits of unhealthy behavior. You might get a great deal of pleasure from eating chocolate cake, for example. Deciding what level of risk is acceptable is quite a complicated process, and one that is easy to do incorrectly. Still, it’s necessary to live a happy life.

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