If you do not enter the tiger's cave, you will not catch its cub.
-Japanese Proverb

      From either making a decision to sacrifice a piece in chess or sacrificing one life to save others, either big or small, the descion of sacrifice in order to gain for the greater good must be made. Yet often, human greed prevents people from grasping the whole concept of sacrifice and only wish to gain with no loss. It is our choice to follow the path of loss in order to gain or the path of refusal to loose just to gain which will cause the follower to stay stagnant and not progress to their desires. In order to progress farther one of the Japanese pearl of wisdom tells us "If you do not enter the tiger's cave, you will not catch its cub."
      The Japanese are showing how in order to get something you must take a risk and a chance of sacrifice in order to gain a reward. Since ancient history we have seen this proven valid. The Great Roman Empire grew to be am all-mighty country by taking risks in expansion but ,as the saying goes all great things must come to an end, it ended up falling due to over expansion and not being able to control the vast lands and mans greatest weakness, greed. The Japanese were right to say that we must take risks but there also must be a point to where we must come to a stop in our risk taking.
      Since ancient times we have played the game of risks to feed our greeds' desires for more. One of mankind's oldest activities is gambling and has become one of the modern worlds most common game. Common gambling games like roulette, blackjack,poker, pai , ect. originated from ancient china and Europe and still exist today, why? Because man desire for more money = more power = more respect, many will risk everything to feed their overpowering desires. Due to this natural human desire these games still exist today causing plenty to risk everything leaving their lives in complete disaster; therefore there must be a point where we learn to stop. While greed for more money blinds our reasoning skills allowing us to blindly take risks, risking things becomes a lot more difficult when money and power is absent.

       When I was really young and learning how to play chess I would always play defense and never wanted to approach the opponents side ( the tiger's cave) but as I continued to play I realized that if I never pushed forward I would never be able to succeed and win the game (catch the cub). Just like this game of chess, in order to continue forward in life we must take those risks or how are we suppose to grow? The way I see it is that this games sole purpose is to teach us this lesson of life. As a high school student, in order to progress to my next level of education, I must take academic risks to get high score on exams and qualify for certain universities, like adding your own voice in papers and taking harder courses, not knowing if you'll be able to handle it.

      Just as the Japanese word of advice says we must take take risks and possibly have to sacrifice something there also must be a point to where we must call it quits on the game of risk taking. Without taking chances we won't move forwards or backwards in our paths but instead just stay still. Some may say isn't it better to stay still rather than that chance of moving backwards, but whats the point of staying still if that comes at a cost of not being able to push on forward? Wouldn't you be not living your life to its fullest?