Yes that is a good post, but there is also the other side.  I have always been a poor risk taker, always a little afraid of sticking my neck out.  I think I inherited this from my Dad.

My Dad had made a contract with his father, just a short time before his father died, i believe this was in 1926.  He agreed to pay a certain amount each year to his mother then in 1938 pay a balloon payment. In the early 1930's his mother needed more to live and to send the last two members of the family to school.  Times still didn't look all that bad so Dad took out a federal Land Bank loan.  Giving her more money and giving Dad full procession of the land so he could make improvements on it.  Then the depression and the droughts really hit.  He had a hard time making payments, he did manage to do so.  He paid the remainder off in 1947,the year after I got out of high school. I was with him when he paid it off, the people at the Federal Land Bank tried to talk him out of paying it off.