Risk and Rewards

After shopping from Target today for some life essentials and a gift card, I ran into someone who asked me for money:

"Sir, my car ran out of gas and I live an hour and a half away from here. Can I get a dollar or two?"

Unless he was trying to collect a dollar or two from at least 50 different people, I don't think asking for that much was realistic, so he may have been lying or may have been just that desperate. Who knows... but I am now comfortable with just replying with "I don't give money to strangers by principle." I don't, as I would much rather donate money (when I actually make some money) to an agency or cause that deals with homelessness or the indigent rather than falling for a high probability of lies on the street.

This incident also reminded me of the risk-reward system of medicine. In this country, the riskier, more procedural specialties are rewarded with greater payout (e.g. cardiothoracic surgery or neurosurgery) than something that is not as invasive (e.g. family medicine). So this guy who was nicely asking for money and just walking away is like the low-risk, low-payout (he obviously didn't get anything from me). He would have had more payout in risking jail time by robbing me. Is that a twisted or harsh analogy? But so goes the risk-reward system...