Jan

11

Try to start each morning thinking of something and someone you're grateful to in your personal and professional lives, and think specifically what you are grateful about. You will discover that you can't be earnestly and sincerely grateful in a heartfelt way and at the same moment in time feel that anything is wrong or missing in your life. It is from that position that one can often make the best decisions that will stand the test of time.

Every time you make decisions from scarcity, fear, jealousy, etc. they are often as flawed as those mindsets are poisonous to your mind.

By the way, try to find the people involved in what you are grateful about and express it to them. It will not only make their day, it will make you a little bit more deserving of success and happiness because you were temporarily able to leave your self-absorption that can very easily become a black hole.

Nigel Davies comments: 

In chess, to coin a phrase, it depends on the position. Sometimes there's a second chance, sometimes there isn't. Schlechter and Bronstein came very close to winning the World Championship and the point at which they missed their opportunities has been traced to single moves. In Schlechter's case the outcome was particularly tragic as he subsequently died of starvation. A Bronstein win probably would have improved his situation also, no matter what he said in retrospect.

Of course most of the moves we make in life are not usually so critical. If we miss one, we go on living even if it was some kind of key moment, and things then take a different course. They may be better or worse depending on which variation we find ourselves in. And probably we should not dwell on 'what might have been' for it distracts the attention from the game we're actually playing.

But the thought that haunts me is that our choices may be more limited than we think; it is difficult to be anything other than ourselves and most of the outcomes will be an extension of this. Perhaps we can learn to make better decisions and I believe that my struggle with the chessboard (and now markets) has been largely about this. As I like to tell my students, a genius is a man who only makes the same mistake five or six times, most of us do it for our entire lives. 


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1 Comment so far

  1. steve leslie on January 11, 2007 4:16 pm

    The American people are by nature a forgiving society especially if the offending person is conciliatory and repentant. It is all part of the fabric of Western Society. Socialogically, I am sure it could be explained that we as a people generally feel for the underdog for the down trodden the down on their luck and this phenomenon can be seen in numerous venues.

    Two places where this is manifested the most is in politics and in law. The big mistake that Richard Nixon made was that he was arrogant and defiant with respect to the Wagergate affair. His team decided to make this a battlefield stand and as a result Nixon was forced to give up the Presidency. Had he done things differently, and expressed a modicum of humanity and humbleness and asked the American people to see his decisions as those made due to poor judgement and relying on the poor advice from his advisors, he would have never been forced to resign.

    Bill Clinton was impeached because of his arrogance and defiance against congress. He did not have the character to admit publicly that he had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, Gennifer Flowers, and others and he refused to apologize to Paula Jones publicly for his inappropriate actions towards her.

    The people were waiting to forgive him but he would not open the door to ask their forgiveness. As a result, he was taken to task and became the second president in history to be impeached.

    Alcee Hastings was actually convicted and removed from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida as a federal court judge for corruption and perjury.
    He is now a member of Congress.

    In criminal cases, how many times do defendants ask for forgiveness and a second chance to make things right after they are convicted of a crime . To apologize to the victim in a tearful eulogy in the hope that a forgiving jury and/or judge will see fit to give them another chance. WE hear their justification that ” I was drunk, on drugs, abused as a child, molested as a teenager, etc.” in a vain attempt to gain sympathy from the sentencers.

    Yes we are a forgiving nation almost to a fault. How many came out and stated that no matter how horrible Saddam Hussein was it did not merit death by hanging or even our invasion of Iraq. When the gangster Tookie Wilson was set for capital punishment for the brutal murder of people in a convenience store, personalities such as Jamie Foxx Ed Asner and other liberals defended him saying that he did not deserve such a brutal their are circumstances that need to be reviewed end even though he cruelly murdered innocent people by using a shotgun nobody should take another life.

    The list is almost endless. We see it from time immemorial. Yes we are a forgiving people but we need to be very careful who we are willing to forgive and who we are not.

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