Monday, November 25, 2013

If you're so smart, why ain't you dead?


I've been thinking about bad decisions, and how good decisions grow out of them. Stuck behind a log truck on skinny winding blacktop, it's probably a bad decision to try to pass. Being patient is statistically speaking the better option, survivalwise. Jumping into the pool from a second story balcony is a bad choice. I know that now, though it worked out fine at the time. Climbing the radio tower was dumb. The borrowed motorcycle, the drummer's sister, the mysterious powder, the third trip to the buffet. All terrible ideas. My question is, how do cautious people ever learn anything?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

They watch people who do those things, and take notes...

OMN said...

Yup, my dad always said that everybody learns from experience, but smart people learn from the experience of others.