Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

Courage is probably the highest ROI character trait right now & the most valuable form isn't one most of us have practiced. It's not taking the leap, it's maintaining focus & enthusiasm while you're in freefall

Feels like this is probably only true if you don't include the catastrophic negative results that some suffer when combining courage with poor execution. Though I would argue it is still conceptually true if not literally.

yeah, it is simultaneously true that many people are too risk-averse to their own detriment and that it is still very possible to take risks that result in catastrophic unrediable costs

*unremediable, ugh pre-coffee tweets

a very, very tragic thing is the population of people who take their own lives directly or via e.g. opioid addiction due to a loss of meaning or a chronic intolerable anxiety over loneliness or poverty, conditions that IMO can only be mitigated via powerful self-sustaining hope

it's not anyone's "fault" for falling into such despair, but I think we could all be part of creating a culture that's protective against it — a better social safety net is part of the answer, but without a visceral hope/optimism accompanying it, it's not sufficient

I often wonder if we don't create the wrong cultural expectations at a deeper level by instilling a sense that one should be hopeful and optimistic instead of some less pleasant worldview. 1/2