It is always a good idea to take a good long look at any situation you are about to enter into before you actually get your hands dirty. The more prepared you are, the less likely you can be caught off guard and get into trouble. Sometimes, sizeing something up can make you decide to avoid it completely. Here are a few examples of some things that I wish I would have sized up before I took them on:
- Rapids: These are tricky. If you don’t know how to read them, make sure you are wearing a PFD. I think I can read them, even though I repeatedly discover that I cannot.
- Arguments: I’ve had jobs where it was my duty to mediate, or end arguments. When I was younger I used to use my height to intimidate the opponnents into shutting up, but now I listen first, then reason. It even works with little kids. They are smarter than you think.
- Tankards: Those mugs hold alot more than you think. I looked at one and thought that it must be a little bigger than a pint. Its actually ALOT bigger than a pint. This applies to other things of disarming size like pizza (its flat, how hard could it bea to eat the whole thing?), children (such small fists how could they hurt? Its not the fists, its the kcik, and where it lands), and cows (even a small cow has many times your mass, and all that mass is concentrated on 4 tiny hooves)
- Programming Projects: If you are not a seasoned software developer (and what student is?) then that project you think is simply and easily constructed turns out not to be when you fail to properly prepare for it. I used to make software by just writing code, now I know better.
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