In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it.
— Epictetus
RESILIENCE
WHAT THIS MEANS
Most decisions that end badly were not wrong at the moment of choosing. They were entered without a look at what the choice would demand up front and what it would commit you to afterwards. The job looks good until you count the commute; the move looks good until you count what you leave behind. Wanting a thing and paying for the whole of it are separate questions.
Before your next commitment, write two short lists: what this asks of me to begin, and what I am still holding a year from now. If either list surprises you, that is the information you were about to skip.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
What did you start without thinking about how it ends?
MORE IN CHOICE & CONSEQUENCE
- When the idea of any pleasure strikes your imagination, make a just computation between the duration of the pleasure…
- Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
- Battles are never the end of war; for the dead must be buried and the cost of the conflict must be paid.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.