I agree that produces a better expected return, however the downside-risk from a bad outcome is worse for me than the expected upside gain.

Essentially, I don't expect my overall happiness and satisfaction to be linearly correlated with my finances, and I expect that non-linearity to be such that I'd rather be more risk-averse in such a way that I have to give up some of the potential gain.

If there were a world where I could _guarantee_ the avg. stock market return, then I'd of course take that offer, but sadly such guaranteed returns only exist in the form of scams and ponzi schemes.