Typically, making a decision doesn’t require much effort on my part. However, most decisions hold only minor consequence, or have a short time-horizon; their impact only extends a few hours, days, weeks, or, on a rare occasion, months. The limited consequences brings a peace of mind knowing even a “wrong” decision won’t detrimentally impede my life or that of those around me. But, when it comes to the bigger decisions, the ones with high financial, time, or effort costs and consequences or results measured in months, years, and decades, making one becomes exponentially harder to the nth degree. It might have been Charlie Munger who explained why the C student more often becomes the Chief of a venture than the A student: the latter has a historically driven need to be right, to pick the right answers, say the right things, please the right people, and make the right decisions. Meanwhile, the former has no such pressure and are more free to experiment without regard to the consequences. This may sound foolish to the A student, but, in reality, the world is so unlike a test: instead of A through D, your choices are A through Z, one through one-hundred million, and the answer isn’t always C, it could be all of the options, it could be half of them, it could be just a few, but there is rarely just one. Those who live life trying different answers inevitably find a right one, those who spend their lives analyzing the question may never even get a glimpse out the window. Don’t be overwhelmed by massive decisions, take a few steps in the direction and experience the peace of being just whelmed.
Comments
Post a Comment