"It will never happen to me." When is it dangerous to think like this?

It is always dangerous to think that.

Regarding anything to do with any type of insurance.

Regarding seat belts.

Whenever we begin to think we are bulletproof. Driving, sex, anything except athletics. Because when we think that we tend to make choices that can bite us in the ass. Been there, done that. But if you think of athletics you have to think your bulletproof to perform best. I’ve also got bit in the ass doing that too, but you have to try.

I don’t think it is dangerous to think like that. You can’t live your life forecasting every disaster. If it happens, it happens.

Individually, you would need to assess your risk groups, Statistically speaking. Insurance actuary tables can help with this. Breast cancer, heart disease, exposure to STDs, AIDS….. But two things I would absolutely tell everyone… practice safe sex, wear sunscreen and your seatbelt. Oh.. I guess that is three things. Dementia is one of those unavoidable things.

I think I stand on pretty firm ground when I say, with emphasis, that “I will never become pregnant.” Beyond that, though, all bets are off.

Otherwise, though I tend to agree with @marinelife that you can’t expect every meteor in the sky (or every lightning bolt) to fall on your head, but it makes sense to stay under cover in a thunderstorm, to eat your vegetables, to have regular checkups and dental cleanings, etc. etc.

You have to do some basic evaluation of risk for your situation, which can include your age, gender, occupation, hobbies, living status, etc. and make adjustments in your life suitable to address the common or likely risks.

If you don’t have a disease or disability right now, and think you will never have one. It might mess with your ego later on.

One thing I can say with certainty is that I will never reproduce. does a jig

I will never marry a Bulgarian spot-welder named Ivana Humpalot, it’s extremely dangerous to even whisper such a notion, think of the language barriers for a start.

I pretty much think anything and everything can happen to me. I guess I will never get prostate cancer since I don’t have one, but there are zillions of other cancers I could wind up with.

I do worry about some things more than others of course. Generally I don’t worry about breast cancer while women all around me seem to obsess about it. But, I would never say it will never happen to me.

I am risk aversive, so I don’t think I have ever though in terms of something can’t happen to me. In addition I am very aware of dangers out there, more than the typical person I would say.

I know people who have been hit by lightening, had their house hit by lightening became pregnant by accident, have died at very young ages, all sorts of fairly rare things. I’m a big believer bad things happen.

It’s dangerous because as soon as you believe it can’t happen to you, it will. You let your guard down and take unnecessary risks that increase the likelihood that something will go wrong.

@JLeslie My husband always jokes that the only type of cancer I haven’t convinced myself I had at one point or another is prostate. Well, that and testicular. :)

It is always dangerous to think that way. There is no telling what might happen to any of us. At the same time we shouldn’t worry too much either. It might never happen.

Regarding most safety precautions.

However, some precautions on consumer items are just plain ridiculous. On a car window sun shade, “Caution, Do Not Drive With Shade in Place.”
On a room air freshener, “Not for human consumption”.

@livelaughlove21 I don’t worry about cancer much at all. My family is chock full of heart disease, and that is more likely to get me, and get me young, than anything else. However, with my GYN problems, I do believe that will one day leadt to cancer, but I don’tdwell on it. i have a colon cancer in my family, and have had polyps since my early 30’s, but don’t even worry about that really.

Does anyone really ever think it will never happen to me though about anything? Isn’t it more likely people just are unaware of what can go wrong? Just never really think about things going wrong? If you ask that same person point blank, “do you think you will get cancer?” Do they respond, “it will never happen to me.” Or, house will catch on fire, or their house will go down in value, whatever. I’m amazed at people who think like that.

When I was selling real estate in FL 8–10 years ago people definitely felt and said, “you can’t lose on real estate.” My thoughts were as soon as you think like that you have more chance of losing. None of the people in my circles believed real estate would go up forever.

I will never get a penile implant, nor will I ever jump out of a helicopter naked, over Transylvania. Other than that, I try to not think in “nevers.”

I had a girlfriend for a couple of decades who was a TERRIBLE driver. Scared the crap out of me to ride with her. She didn’t pay attention to ANY thing. If I commented on it, her response was always, “I’ve been driving x number of years and I’ve never been in a car wreck!”
My response was, “Well, I’ve never died, either. Doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen!”
Finally, FINALLY, one day, at a 4 way stop, she stopped, and then proceeded on through without even checking left or right. And got broadsided by a guy who ran his share of the 4-way stop sign. Such an easy accident to avoid by simply paying attention and anticipating.
This was 10 years ago. Don’t know if she ever got into another wreck but…wrecks make people wiser. Everyone should have at least one, know what I mean?

@WillWorkForChocolate would jump out of a helicopter nakid. While eating pancakes.

It is both dangerous and motivating. Dangerous for many of the reasons already listed. Motivating because it can push a person to be their best. Especially when it comes to doing something they said could not be done or that would never happen. It depends on the situation, subject and person. It can be positive and negative.

Bad things happen to good people. It’s not fair but that is life. Fate is something that no legislative body can change or fix.

I’m with @JLeslie, who in his right mind would think that one or the other would not happen to them? What makes you so special? Other than the gender-wise obvious stuff, anything can happen to anyone, so yeah necessary precautions ought to be taken. Thinking you are safe from stuff that only happens to “other people” is nonsensical and flat out crazy.

You better keepa you hands offa Ivana, @ucme. She’s been telling me about you…

Car accidents. Especially the minor ones.

There is nothing dangerous about thinking, “it’ll never happen to me.”

An event doesn’t become more probably just because one thinks it won’t happen. It’ll either happen or it won’t.

^^ True, but one can be better prepared when it does happen if they don’t have this mindset.

Pretty much anything can happen to anyone but beyond taking reasonable precautions, it doesn’t pay to worry about that much.

@CWOTUS What…the threesome we had with Alotta Fergina?

@Kropotkin So if I think that I could never get HIV or another STD because I only choose “clean” partners, and therefore don’t bother using condoms, I’m no more likely to contract an STD than someone that uses condoms and takes extra precautions?

If I think I could never get into an accident because “I’m a good driver,” so I don’t wear my seatbelt or practice defensive driving, I’m just as likely to be hurt in an accident than someone who’s a careful driver?

How do you figure that?

With some things, like cancer, thinking you can’t get it won’t make it more likely that you will, no, but it makes it less likely that you’ll catch it in time. Brushing off strange symptoms and not paying attention to your body’s cues is certainly dangerous.

@livelaughlove21 Actually yes. We can do things to prevent cancer. Thinking we can never get it can be compared to AIDS. For girls it is HPV and cervical, anal, or tongue cancer. For men it is tongue cancer and anal actually.

How we take care of ourselves does affect our chances of cancer with how we eat, whetherwe smoke, we have sone control. It is not just early detection that saves you, we can do things to avoid getting it.

@JLeslie Well sure, but if I got cancer, I seriously doubt the doctor could tell me I did it to myself by eating a bad diet. The “cause” of cancer is hard to pinpoint in most cases. Those who eat well and exercise still get cancer, so who’s to say which person’s diagnosis was avoidable and whose wasn’t?

What you’re saying does hold true for lung cancer, though, namely with smokers who think they’re invincible. Not that non-smokers can’t get lung cancer.

@livelaughlove21 It’s true, people who do everything right so to speak sometimes still get cancer. Even lung cancer. They can tell by the cancer cell if it is smoker’s cancer. But, to your point, my BIL just faught off a very very aggressive rectal cancer and he is obsessed with eqting healthy and not using microwave ovens etc. He was not always so health oriented, but he has been for quite a while and is only 46 years old.

As far as HPV cancer They can tell that also, if the cancer is from HPV, but it is hard to avoid it is so prevalent. There is the vaccine now that helps prevent getting a few strains. Farrah Faucet, Michael Douglas, Colleen Zenk Pinter, all caught their cancer from a sexual mate just to name some actors people might know.

Eating well, exercise, avoiding bad habits like smoking and drinking only help shift the odds, but does not guarantee anything unfortuneately. Bad genes play a big part in my opinion and environmental things that are out of our control.

I’m ambivalent on this one….

On the one hand, if it can happen, it can happen to you. I don’t believe there’s anything intelligent looking after any of us, shit happens in a pretty random fashion, and there is no guarantee that life is going to be any fairer to you than anybody else.

On the other hand, in many cases, simply being aware that it can happen to you won’t make it less likely that it will, and will only serve to make you anxious about hypothetical scenarios.

If it’s a situation where your invincibility complex can actually put you in danger, like believing you don’t need to wear your seat belt, that’s a problem.

If we’re talking about something like pancreatic cancer, go ahead and continue believing it will never happen to you if that makes life easier for you. Being aware that it might happen to you isn’t exactly going to prevent it.

In my life I’ve flip flopped on this. I mean, when I was 14, I hadn’t really started thinking about diseases and stuff happening to me yet. I don’t think that was me being naive; I don’t think 14 year olds need to be worrying about that. But 14 year olds can get sick, uncommon as it is, and I was one of those lucky ones. I was really blindsided, as you might expect. For years afterwards I feared being blindsided again and took it upon myself to consider the possibility of every terrible thing potentially happening to me. I thought I was making preparations. What I was really doing was mentally scarring myself. I’ve only recently learned how to stop doing that.

When I was considering surgery, the standard advice would probably be to be realistic about the risks in order to make an informed decision. I chose to be a little more idealistic. I needed the surgery, it wasn’t so much a choice. So I didn’t dwell on all the potential complications that happen to 1% of people. Even a run of the mill surgery was going to be hard. I couldn’t handle the burden of believing it would be any harder than strictly necessary. And lo and behold, one of those complications happened to me. But I don’t regret my decision.

Depends on what it is.

It would be a mistake to say “It will never happen that I will get sick or injured, so I don’t need to buy medical treatment insurance”.

On the other hand, it would be reasonable to say “It will never happen that I see a penny of Social Security, so I better make sure to save plenty, while I am paying for somebody else’s Social Security”

Sometimes it’s rational, sometimes it’s foolish

@livelaughlove21 One could also think one won’t contract HIV or another STD, exactly because one uses precautions and wears a condom.

@Kropotkin You use condoms because you know you can get those things. That’s not the same thing at all. Additionally, condoms aren’t 100% protection, so thinking you can’t get HIV because you slap a condom on isn’t very wise either.

@livelaughlove21 My retort was to show that you can make up any ad-hoc reason for thinking or not thinking that some event could happen to you. The mere thought is irrelevant to the probability of the event. If one contracts HIV, despite taking precautions, then the thought of it possibly happening to you or not didn’t make a difference, which I think is pretty much irrefutable.

@Kropotkin I think for me the point of thinking that something might happen to me is not whether I am paralyzed by fear of it or will or will not take precautions. For me the main point of thinking something might happen to me is that it engenders empathy for others who are in that situation and that I am not above them in any way.

@janbb GA.

The idea that it will never happen to me is a prerogative of youth. Enjoy it because it will never return. It is a time to take chances, to learn new stuff, BUT if by age twenty you have not acquired even a small amount of common sense, then thinking you are invulnerable will kill you.

If one uses common sense when taking precautions in life, it becomes second nature really, or it should. It therefor should not cause anxiety to use it. I don’t think the pilots who put the plane on auto- pilot after checking everything are sweating life.

I wonder how many people said that, then later found out they have HIV.

@cheebdragon Maybe all of them?