Forgetting birth and parentage, how much of life is a gamble ?

All of it. As many healthcare professionals will attest, any amount of planning in your life will become useless the moment your car is hit by another while you are stopped at a traffic light. You take a gamble walking out the door everyday that you won't be the victim of trauma. You gamble that the hamburger you eat for lunch is free from e-coli. You even gamble that the person you marry will be the person you are in love with 30 years from now, but at least you have some say in that.

In spite of all of this gambling, most of us seem pretty happy with life. Certainly more than someone who stays at home, afraid of the outside world, who is single and a germaphobe. We gamble everyday, but those gambles are what make the difference between merely surviving and actually living.

Great question!

I'm not sure what you mean by this. But I do think that pretty much all of life is a gamble. Every choice you make has a consequence. Sometimes your bad choices actually yield positive results, sometimtes your positive choices actually turn out with horrible results. Just deciding to take your family to the zoo, to get sunshine, see animals, have a fun day, can turn into disaster if someone else decided that day to drive drunk...or to put a cd in the cd player of their car...or call home to let someone know you are bringing dinner. the call may not have been made with a bad intention, but a few distracted moments in the car could lead to disaster.

Entering a contest, wearing a nice dress instead of yesterdays gym clothes, brushing your teeth, drinking enough water, eating too many calories, getting out of bed early or ot getting up at all. Every choice made by every person leads up to something. Being alive in a world full of other people with the power to make choices means that life itself is a gamble. You never know if today will be your last day, staying home may not save you either, carbon monoxide, burglary, fire, asteroid, falling plane.....anything can happen at any time to anyone. Life's a gamble.

So, I am not sure if I answered your question or not, sorry if that isn't what you were looking for.

It is not something I would describe as a gamble.

Personally it is something that "is"- as in, through language and previous thought on the issue, we "think, therefore we are", I know that I have a life. I do not see it as a "gift" from a god or gods, as I still keep an open mind as to whether intelligent design exists, or if this is all a cosmic accident.

We either have predetermined paths (if you believe in the religious viewpoint), in which case choices don't matter, or we have free choice, in which case you will be your own judge, and your own conscience and hindsight will tell you if you made the right choices in life.

I simply don't see that any of it is a gamble, in the sense that you don't really win or lose. You might see winning the lottery as a "victory" or great moment in your life, then kill yourself with excess because you are not used to wealth. If you hadn't won, you might have lived to a ripe old age and enjoyed your grandkids- so which of those lives is a victory?

If there is no victory, then there can be no gamble. Only my opinion, hope it contributes to your question...

Excellent question and some excellent answers I see. But it's about defining what you consider to be a gamble, and we will all see that word differently.

I believe the old saying that 'Life is what you make it', in which case gambling doesn't come into it. You can bring about your reality if you really want to - but you have to REALLY want to. Gambling involves risk, chance and as someone said, victory and I don't see life that way. We make our own choices - even if we refuse to admit it and whether something turns out to be a good choice or a bad choice, its still a choice, not a risk. Remember we learn from everything we do, so bad choices actually affect us and the future choices we then go on to make, so can we say a bad choice was a 'risky gamble' if we then learn from it and go on to to make better, decisions? Do we lose, or 'lose out'? I don't think so. I think we actually develop as people, learning about ourselves and gaining knowledge. If we choose not to learn from our mistakes, then we are being predictable, following the same pattern - therefore that still cannot be described as gambling.

Another interesting question would be 'How much of life is death?'

It's a question of managing risk. Everything we do is risky. For example, going outside we might be knocked down by a car. But sitting at home all day we might get unfit and develop piles. ;-)

So living life successfully is all about risk management. We can do high-risk things occasionally, provided they bring us a big reward, but most of the time we should be doing low-risk things. It's a question of getting the balance right.

Also if we do something risky we need to consider the possible downside, and have a Plan B ready in case our Plan A goes wrong.

ooh, what an intresting question. I assume this question asks about whether or not you take a risk on decisions and if you suceed or not. How much you gamble on being succesful in a situation depends on risk...and level or idetitiy of that risk...ie, Bungee jumping...life risk. Cheating on a partner, society risk.....One is dangerous cos you die...the other, people may find out and hate you. Both depends on how you feel about the people around you or youself, as you would not do either unless it is acceptable in the curcumstances you live in.

It is all open to chance and how you interact with the chance events that come your way.

You can seize the chance opportunities, etc. and deal with the negative things.

So it is all chance, or a gamble, in a sense, but then it is how you respond to the chances you get.

There is no gamble at all.Simple living high thinking is the key to success.

its not a gamble, we have no choice. its a fact that we will

die and we didnt ask to be born so do we punish our parents

for this existance, after all they have sent you to your worst

nightmare.

All of it, or none of it! It is your "choice", Your "free will"!