If you have never gotten into major trouble, then something is missing from your life. In the same way that never making a mistake at work probably means you’re being too risk-averse, the same is true of life.
We all want different things in life. But whatever thing you’re trying to get out of life, you probably stand a better chance of getting it with more experimentation, more challenge and change, more risk. That means, sometimes, you’ll end up a hooligan.
You’ll misstep. You’ll make an enemy, or break a bone. You’ll zig when you should have zagged and go sideways. Your boat will sink or someone will leave your life. These things happen to hooligans.
But you’ll also have stories. Lessons of the mayhem. Wisdom that can’t be found anywhere else. These things will feed back into your life greater victories than the defeats that gave them to you.
Befriend the hooligans. Those are stories worth hearing.
The Opportunity Machine 