Consequences are things that will happen. For example, if you want to be an Olympic athlete, then you will train hard a lot of the time.

Risks are things that may happen. For example, if you run a business, there’s always a risk that your business go bankrupt.

Prices are things that you should do as a preparation before doing a thing. For example, if you want to drive, you need to get a license first.

In this world, many things involve risks, prices, consequences.

Unpaid prices will make the risks higher. For example, not putting on a condom before having sex increases the risk of pregnancy and disease transmission.

You can only reduce the risk to zero if you pay all the prices involved beforehand. Unfortunately, this may prove to be impossible in many cases. Because you may not know all the prices involved (all the things you must prepare beforehand), you cannot prepare for every possible situation beforehand, hence the risks will always exist.

For example, you might prepare with all your might to launch a product (you do market research, you do design carefully, you make sure that the implementation is good, etc.), but nobody can guarantee that your product will be a success. There’s always the risk of your product failing, since you may not know what other things you must do beforehand (e.g. you might not realize that the current market taste is against your product, or that a new technology will make your product unnecessary, or that the government will pass a law that effectively cripple your product, etc.).

In such cases, you better make preparation in case the risk do happens. For example, make sure you can get a job, just in case if your business or product fails, so that you can still feed yourself.

Before deciding something, make sure you have enough information about the risks, prices, and consequences involved.