That's a good point. I'm a big reader - and I have lists of thousands of books I want to read. But one reason I semi-on-purpose still pick up random books that I stumble across and look fun, even if they're less "optimally chosen" by me, is exactly so that I sometimes stumble on things I would otherwise miss.

Or maybe just, like many readers, I love buying new books almost as much as reading them, and this is just an excuse to buy more... :)

That last bit resonates with me so much! In fact, there’s a word in Japanese for it - ‘tsundoku’! Ever since I stumbled upon it, I feel almost vindicated :)).

The funny thing is, I do the same with Audible books too, even if they aren't something I normally physically see. I just can't help buying books :)

For many things in life I try to find and loosely follow some ideal ratio of explore vs. exploit. For restaurants I've found 1:3 ratio works well - 3 times eating at restaurants I know I love, then the fourth time eating somewhere I haven't been yet. Usually the new restaurant doesn't live up to my favorites, but sometimes I find a new favorite.

I just got into the habit of saying “yes” to pretty much anything. It has taken me on some wild rides indeed, and I am richer in spirit for it. It forged the bond between my wife and me - “shall we do a road trip across Eurasia?”, she idly asked, expecting at the very most a “maybe” - instead I grasped that nettle and applied for visas that day. Six weeks of utterly madcap adventure ensued. Since, I’ve found myself in an unending series of odd adventures of one variety of another, from fostering rare donkeys to… other stuff I’d be wise to not mention. Some episodes I would call ill-advised in the extreme, but all have been enriching.

There’s always a reason to say no, and it’s probably bullshit.

It also has the added benefit of uplifting others - it transforms their idle thought into something that actually happens.

Isn't this also just a form of survivorship bias? You wouldn't be posting this from prison for example.

Maybe at the end of the day simple platitudes only work for the lucky.

Well, by definition, if you have bad luck, you are unlucky.

But sometimes you can move out of a chain of bad luck events by doing something else and not repeating the same stuff while hoping for change.

> not repeating the same stuff while hoping for change

That infamous quote typically attributed to Einstein notwithstanding, really most of learning and progress is done by doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different outcomes.

> > I just got into the habit of saying “yes” to pretty much anything.

> Isn't this also just a form of survivorship bias? You wouldn't be posting this from prison for example.

Note that "pretty much everything" is a proper subset of "everything" and could well be defined as "everything except the obviously stupid stuff that's highly likely to lead to bad outcomes", and this from a sample that's already biased in your favour -- e.g. the vast majority of places you can go in the universe would kill you instantly, but the vast majority of places someone might suggest going to, or offer to go to with you, won't.

If you filter out the "let's go see the Titanic in my home-made submarine" ideas, your odds are actually quite good.

Yeah, I have my limits - and while I have agreed to stuff that was in hindsight Quite A Bad Idea, the majority of my “sure, why not” moments have lead to the fantastic.

It also requires a lack of commitments and a modest amount of disposable income.

The two go hand in hand - when I started agreeing to outlandish stuff, I was miserably running my business, commitments oozing from my ears, with barely two bob to run together.

Thing is, when you start saying yes to stuff, and start finding yourself in new places with new people, new opportunities present themselves. I am much materially wealthier now than I ever was when I worked for a living, partly due to income through new connections, partly due to a vastly decreased cost of day to day living by emigrating, and travel has become considerably cheaper as friends I made along the way make for happy hosts, or travel companions to split the cost of something outlandish with.

For example, I invested in an Australian I found wading in the mud at Aralsk, I befriended and helped out a PMC owner I met in Antarctica, and I robbed a Russian oligarch I met on a megayacht, in that order. All were lucrative. One of those falls into the “probably shouldn’t have” category (no prizes guessing which), but is still a “wait, I actually did that?”, and taught me more about myself and this strange world than I anticipated.

Time remains a luxury, but life is short, and easily squandered, so I spend it thoughtfully.

> It also has the added benefit of uplifting others - it transforms their idle thought into something that actually happens.

Hearty agreement, from the experience of both the receiving and offering ends of that gesture.

If you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you will learn the things you never knew you never knew.

But can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

In all seriousness, I liked that line you quoted in the song. I wonder if there is a literary term for that repetition. It's not alliteration I don't think as the words themselves repeat.

polyptoton?

Epanalepsis?

Chiasmus?

Why are all rhetorical devices given such arcane names?

> arcane names

That's why they're magic! If people used these words every day they'd end up starting fires or summoning demons.

Rhetoric was invented in Greece

Camorepticus?

Scremaèlitude?

We're just making up words at this point, right?

I think they're just Greek because we got them from the Greeks.

Or possibly antanaclasis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antanaclasis

Actually, it's not really repetition, since she's talking about the things you didn't even know were unknown to you.

Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. It's slow death.

Pocahontas...

I don't think he is saying, don't be surprised, or have unique experiences. But don't sit and watch YouTube all day. You can curate your inputs to some degree, and limit just sitting and soaking in social media.

>> I try to avoid doing dumb, damaging, or boring things twice.

As a parent I tell my kids: "Make lots of mistakes. Learn from them and don't repeat them; avoid the fatal ones". Then I try to remember my own words before I chastize them for their multitude of dumb decisions (teenage boys)...

To be fair, you have avoided the fatal ones. So at the very least you're not a hypocrite.

If someone is a current smoker and they eventually die of lung cancer, would you say that they avoided the fatal decision up until they died?

I mean, in the long we are all dead, but we have to say that there can be ultimately fatal decisions made in which the person does not immediately die.

We start aging, i.e. heading for death, the moment we are born. And with every breath henceforth. Some faster, some slower. So it is relative, in every sense.

The importance of embracing mistakes as opportunities for growth and learning

This is it, combined with the points brought forth by the parent. Like all things, a healthy balance seems to be the optimal strategy. Life’s a journey; good idea to plan but the people and places you find off the beaten path are often the most rich and rewarding.