I just had this discussion with my daughter this morning, and how you might reasonably decide if it is ok to break a rule.<p>Often your chice is should do x or y, wait or do now, get the big one or the small one.<p>By contemplating outcomes in terms or relative risks, you can avoid the problem of trying to evaluate and normalise absolute risk.<p>eg ask youself, "is the risk of proceding less than the risk of not proceding"<p>By asking yourself a comparative questoin, rather than an absolute one, it can often become a lot easier to decide.
A Systems Thinking approach:<p>- Identify all of the entities involved -- people, places, instruments, environments, etc<p>- For each of those entities, identify what bigger systems are they part of, and also what smaller systems are they comprised of.<p>- Enumerate all of these things' relationships to one another<p>- Consider how the the decision will affect the entities, systems, and relationships, in each of the possible scenarios<p>- Weigh the benefits and drawbacks from all of those perspectives, and then make the call.