Options in life

Doing anything in a new way — tinkering or experimenting — is essentially an option to start doing something in a better way. If we have enough rationality so simply compare two options, how we usually do things versus what we’re doing right now — we’re able to take advantage of life’s optionality. And its relatively easy to compare two things and choose the better option — at least when compared to juggling several theoretical options without doing them first.

However, to be able to do do this, two important things must be clear:

1) Be open to change — this can be difficult because we like to set up routines and schemes to keep things the same. It feels bad to change because some part of your ego will not want to admit you have done something wrong in the past.

2) Don’t focus too much on intellectual study and preparation — instead try and succeed/fail fast. It seems we humans learn much better from practice than from theory (at least I do).

(As a tangent to #1, imagine all the poker players who play their whole lives and keep losing because they refuse to change their playing style — this is because they blame all their misfortune on bad luck, other players, etc. and don’t change)

Do you see how beautiful this mindset is? The option is simply a substitute for knowledge. We don’t have to know exactly how things are going to play out — instead act them out and choose for yourself — it is a much simpler world to live in and above all else, a more fun world.

Of course you don’t always have the luxury to try everything and then choosing — but for the most part this seems to be the case.

Source:
Antifragile by Nassim Taleb