Evan Fife

Tag: Philosophy

  • Being Effectually Minded

    Goal Induced Blindness from Farnam Street

    Uncertainty is one of our least favorite conditions, we hate the feeling of not knowing what to do, and we dislike the frustration that comes from not having anything to really do. It leads us to believe that those who are successful are because they had the right goals from the beginning and were able to develop the skills necessary to execute perfectly on those goals. A successful entrepreneur was successful because their idea was so good and their drive was so intense that nothing could stop them from the success that they wanted. The truth is that the key to success is adaptability, or what Oliver Burkeman calls being “effectually minded”.

    Essentially, an effectually minded person has two main characteristics, they care about finding a goal that matches their abilities and they practice positive catastrophizing. Rather than finding a goal or an idea and doing everything that they can to become the person or build the relationships to reach a certain goal, they take the abilities and knowledge that they already have and find a goal or an idea that can be achieved using that. Rather than looking at (or ignoring) what they lack in the face of a lofty goal, they take what they have and find a goal or problems that can be solved.

    The other half is what the Stoics call positive catastrophizing, which is a lot sunnier than it sounds. While a lot of the time we might think of the end goal and the rewards that will come with it, an effectually minded person will instead choose to think about the cost. Instead of asking themselves how big the payoff will be at every step, they ask themselves the cost of failure for each action. Which allows them to realize that often the cost of failure is much less than catastrophic.

  • When Breath Becomes Air

    Paul Kalanithi

    Words have a longevity I do not.

    It has been a long time since I’ve read an entire book in one day, but when you read a book this good it’s not like you have a choice.

    This book helped me to understand the weight placed on the shoulders of medical professionals. While simple to understand, implementing the Hippocratic dictum to “do no harm” is incredibly difficult. Dr. Kalanithi’s broad understanding of living meant that “do no harm” extended to all spheres of a patient’s life:

    Before operating on a patient’s brain, I realized, I must first understand his mind: his identity, his values, what makes his life worth living, and what devastation makes it reasonable to let that life end. The cost of my dedication to succeed was high, adn the ineluctable failures brought me nearly unbearable guilt. Those burdens are what make medicine holy and wholly impossible: in taking up another’s cross, one must sometimes get crushed by the weight.

    Thus, sometimes saving the life of the patient that he served meant recognizing that the life that they once had was already dead. His transition from the idealism of a young medical student to the maturity of a head resident was amazing. He recognized the need to sacrifice, to truly live, in order to have an impact. He recognized that a life worth examining meant dedicating it to communities and people that were around him.

    There is no way I could sum up this book in a single review. But I think that the best attempt was done by Dr. Kalanithi’s widow:

    Paul’s decision to look death in the eye was a testament not just to who he was in the final hours of his life but who he had always been. For much of his life, Paul wondered about death – and whether he could face it with integrity. In the end, the answer was yes.

    I think we can just hope to live like him.

    Get When Breath Becomes Air on Amazon