I spent a good part of the afternoon figuring out how I’m going to set up the new solar heaters I purchased for our above ground pool. I used to have 4 large panels that I laid across our garage roof, but I’m not going up on the roof anymore.

This was a decision I made at the start of last summer, deciding that it would be my last season using the roof panels. The process of pulling large plastic solar panels up on a roof and fastening them both together and to the roof is a bit challenging: Completely doable, but challenging. I could probably do it for another 10 years. But I don’t want to play the odds and so I’m putting an end to going on the roof.

The odds that I don’t want to play with are the fact that for older men over 50% of serious injuries and accidental deaths are from falls. The higher the fall, the great odds of it leading to death. A roof is a very high place to fall from. So at the start of pool season last year I decided that I was no longer going up on the roof. I don’t have a fear of heights, I don’t feel unstable. I just know that it’s easier to overestimate my capabilities as I get older, and I’d rather go up on the roof a few less times than possible rather than 1 more time than I should have.

I made a similar decision last summer. My buddy and I took scooters on a 10 minute ride from his house to a pizza place, where I had a couple beers with my pizza. Before heading home, I apologized to him and said I wanted to Uber home because I’m a lightweight with my alcohol and I didn’t want to ride the scooter home feeling a little inebriated.

Essentially, I’m reducing my injury risk, recognizing that even a small fall would mean significant recovery time at my age. This doesn’t mean that I’m living a life of minimizing the odds of every possible danger, but it does mean that at my age I’m getting smarter about when to end things and reduce the risk of injury.