For those who look at extreme sports and the people who enjoy them and wonder where the fun is in doing something so dangerous, it might seem nonsensical. Yet many millions of sports enthusiasts can’t think of anything better than doing something that has an inherent risk within it. The risk is part of the fun, and for some, it is everything – they just wouldn’t play the game or take part in the activity if it wasn’t there.
The question that perhaps should be asked, then, is whether that risk is really worth it? Let’s look more closely at the reasons why people play extreme sports and you can decide for yourself.
It’s A Calculated Risk
One of the main reasons why people love to participate in extreme sports is that the risk involved – which should never be underestimated, of course – is a calculated one. It’s not as though they don’t know what they are getting into, and it’s not as though they haven’t done any training or looked into the possibilities of something going wrong. This is all part of the process of learning how to enjoy these particular sports responsibly and as safely as possible.
Unlike other areas of life where something unplanned can happen and the situation can become dangerous, the risk in extreme sports is known beforehand, and the participant has the chance to decide whether the risk is worth taking. It’s a ‘safe’ kind of risk-taking that is exhilarating.
Freedom
The question of whether or not we’re ever really free is a big one, and not one that can (or should) be answered here. However, what can be said is that in our day to day lives, we often don’t feel free. There are always some chores to do, we have to work to earn money, we have to pay bills, keep our homes clean and tidy, take care of this, that, or the other. It can be exhausting, and it never ends.
Sometimes it’s great just to feel completely free, even if that freedom isn’t exactly real or long-lived. Extreme sports can offer this option. There are far fewer constraints on what you can do (barring safety measures, that is) meaning that you might only ever feel free when you are jumping out of a plane or careening down a mountainside on a bicycle.
Learning Control
As well as freedom, there is a certain amount of control that needs to be exercised when it comes to extreme sports. Whether you have to learn how to buy the right equipment such as when you look for airsoft equipment for sale, or you have to learn the rules of the game or activity to ensure that the risk remains a calculated one, this is a skill that is difficult to learn but once you understand it, you can use it in many other areas of your life.
Being able to feel in complete control of a situation that looks dangerous and feels free is a combination of factors that no other activity will ever be able to provide you, and it is this combination that makes extreme sports so thrilling to be a part of.
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