No Guarantees, Only Life

No Guarantees, Only Life

What’s something you would attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail.

Letters to the Prompt

“Simplicity for clarity, cynicism for truth.”

✍️Writer’s Note

This reflection was sparked by a deceptively simple prompt: “What would you attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail?” Rather than answer directly, I turned the question on its head. Life, after all, offers no guarantees — and that is its beauty. The piece is less about chasing hypothetical certainties and more about embracing the intensity of lived experience, with all its risks, stumbles, and moments of wonder.

Security is mostly a superstition.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
— Helen Keller

Dear Prompt,

Your question does not impress me. It lacks humility. To ask, “What would you attempt if you were guaranteed not to fail?” already places fear at the center of life, as if we must first be reassured before daring. But perhaps life is not about fear at all. It is about stepping into the world, tempting the unknown, and widening the horizon. On the great road of life there are no guarantees — nor should there be. As Martha Keller said in the film Bobby Deerfield: “That would be boring.”

I suppose I could find something brilliant, altruistic, or idealistic to say. But I fail at such pretences. In my simplicity, I see the question turned inward: those who ask for guarantees are those still bound by fear.

The essence of the question troubles me. Very few things in life are certain, and I hope they remain so. We must be open to the unknown, curious rather than cautious. Albert Einstein did not know where his path would lead. Neither did Oppenheimer, nor Pierre and Marie Curie, who set about isolating radium with no assurances, later concluding that progress is neither swift nor easy — and, they might have added, never guaranteed.

If I must answer, then perhaps I would say: I never made a parachute jump, nor climbed Mount Everest or the Himalayas. Tempting as they were, time has caught up with me. Skiing downhill, though, gave me something of the same exhilaration — beauty and danger racing together.

But life has already granted me other attempts without guarantees: I drove a Formula Vee car, founded my first company at thirty-two, loved the women who crossed my path, sailed into a storm, skied the Diavolezza, wandered all continents, rode an elephant, came eye-to-eye with a lion in the African bush, and stood in awe of the African sunset. In none of these moments did I ever ask for guarantees.

For life, in the end, is not about certainty. It is about intensity. It is not about protection from the unknown but the embrace of it. To live is to welcome both the heights and the depths, the triumphs and the losses, and everything in between.

William J J Houtzager, Aka WJJH, October 2025

📌Blog Excerpt

A meditation on the futility of seeking guarantees in life. From Einstein and the Curies to skiing, sailing, and standing before an African sunset, this piece reflects on how the essence of living lies not in certainty, but in curiosity, courage, and intensity.