Margin of safety

The margin of safety is a secret weapon. It’s the buffer, the extra capacity, the redundancy that you build into a system to handle unexpected stress. It’s the difference between a bridge that can barely handle the expected load and one that can hold ten times that load without breaking a sweat. You can apply a margin of safety to any area of life with risk. The key is always asking yourself: What if I’m wrong? What if things don’t go as planned?

Decisions are easy, choices are hard

A good decision is our best analysis of the facts, options and risks. If it’s too close to call, flip a coin, because it’s too close to call. On the other hand, a choice involves understanding our priorities, evaluating our preference for risk and sometimes, changing our minds. None of these are easy. If we face a difficult choice, it’s helpful to stop thinking about it as a decision. It’s a choice. Decisions are strategic, choices are personal.

The little things you enjoy, do them for someone else

If you feel relief when someone asks a question in class, then other students are probably relieved too. Be the one who asks. If you love it when a friend calls to check in, your friends probably love it too. Be the one who calls. If it makes your whole day when someone compliments your outfit, other people probably love it too. Give out more compliments.

The more you think about the situation

When you feel tense or frustrated or worried, it is difficult to think your way into feeling better. The more you think about the situation, the larger it becomes in your mind. Trying to think your way out of it often leads to a spiral of overthinking and rumination. The first step is not to think something different, but to do something different. It doesn’t matter what. Stretch on the floor, go for a walk, work on a project. Get out of your mind and move your body.

After you have exhausted

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on—have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear—what remains? Nature remains; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, and the changes of seasons—the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.

The role of the artist

The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.

The most daring prophecies

If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative in the long run—and often in the short one.