Several years ago I came across a new formulation of the old serenity prayer in a book called The Shrink and The Sage (which was a long-running column in the Financial Times). The authors inserted one word: 'should' into the serenity prayer and removed references to god. So the new one reads: “I will strive to accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can and should, and find the wisdom to know the difference.”
The key word here is 'should' - one maybe able to change a lot of things but if it comes at too steep a cost, it may not be worth it. I have used this formulation occasionally when confronted with a difficult choice. On Thu, Jul 27, 2017 10:27 AM, Arjun Guha [email protected] wrote: Udhay wrote asking for an "academic viewpoint" and that got me thinking about the question. I am a researcher at the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine in Bangalore. As long as the answer to the question "Will this line of enquiry change the way we think?" is "yes" or "maybe" I don't quit. I stop when resources become limiting and restart once resources come to hand, even if it is years later. I have imbibed this from my mentors both in India and in the US. Best, Arjun. On Thu, Jul 27, 2017 at 10:07 AM, Biju Chacko <[email protected]> wrote: > After some amount of prodding by Udhay, I decided to think about this a > bit. > > In my opinion, most people quit because it's just the easiest thing to do. > It's the final step in a sequence of small decisions that paint you into a > corner whose only exit is quitting. > > Interestingly enough, I don't think the lack of explicit decision making > always results in bad outcomes. I think you end up doing what you *really* > want, rather than what you think you want or what society tells you to > want. > > This is good thing when you're making career choices, less so when you are > trying to eat more healthily or exercise more. > > At some level, wisdom is knowing when to trust your gut. > > -- b > > On 27 Jul 2017 08:31, "Udhay Shankar N" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I occasionally listen to the Tim Ferris podcast, and I found last week's > > episode [1] particularly fascinating. It's a panel of people giving their > > take on the question "how does one decide when to quit and when to > > persist". I recommend listening to the episode, but my intention in > posting > > here is to ask the community the same thing. > > > > How do *you* decide when to quit and when to persist? > > > > Udhay > > > > [1] https://tim.blog/2017/07/23/when-to-quit/ > > -- > > > > -- > > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((via phone)) > > > H R VenkateshICFJ Knight Fellow - IndiaFounder, NetaDataOrganiser, Hacks/Hackers IndiaPh: +91 9811824503Twitter: @hrvenkatesh
