The best rule for dying in eve is don't fly what you cant afford to lose because you CAN and WILL lose it. It is possible to stay in high sec space. 0.5 and above and stay in a npc corp and never get shot at by anything other than npcs with entails very little risk (and they will never kill your pod).
HOWEVER
The rewards in low sec are MUCH higher than in 0.5 and above. (Of course they are or else why would people even move to low sec when they know the risks) So you might spend a month to earn 200m in a 0.8 system doing level 4 missions but you could earn the same in 0.0 in a week. So yes you have the chance to lose your ship but you make it up that much quicker so it doesn't matter as much.
Also you will be surprised how quickly ou recover. My first cruiser loss, no wait my first battleship loss abou 120m when i only had a 50m bank balance made me want to cry. Especially because it was entirely my fault. Now it was awful and I felt rubbish but i learnt from it....
1) Dont fly what you cant afford.
2) Killing 1 cov ops ship does not warrant losing a bs to sentry guns
3) Sentry guns hurt when you're new.
4) Piracy is as dangerous as anti piracy.
5) If your in a good corp then things like this dont matter.
On point 5. Within 2 weeks my corp had helped me mine enough ore to build a new megathron and i was back on my feet again.
Hope that helps a bit. I could go on forever about eve, it seems to have taken over my life but i feel im rambling. Feel free to convo me in game though anyone looking for some advice. 'Bazan Kor'