The impact ratio (why it's hard to know what's important)

We like to think we know how important everything is when it happens. But looking backwards, it's clear some events that seem minor in the moment have  large consequences. While other events that seem major in the moment have small consequences. I call this the impact ratio: the relationship between your initial perception of the importance of something, and how important it turns out to be a year or ten years later.

Consider the pretty girl, with the sad brown eyes, you see on the train one ordinary Tuesday morning, whose presence you somehow remember 10 years later. That experience had more impact than seemed possible that very afternoon. More impact than all the meetings that week, all the lunches that month, and maybe even the majority of waking hours the entire year.

We're not built to be good at evaluating the significance of most events when they happen. Since we can't know the future, it's hard to know which things will turn out to be valuable, forgettable, pivotal or trivial. Depending on what happens tomorrow, the value of past experiences changes.

An old fable called "We shall see" illustrates this well:

A farmer's horse ran away. That evening the neighbors gathered to commiserate with him since this was such bad luck.

He said, "We shall see."

The next day the horse returned, and brought with it six wild horses, and the neighbors came exclaiming at his good fortune.

He said, "We shall see."

And then, the following day, his son tried to ride one horse. He was thrown down and broke his leg. Again the neighbors came to offer sympathy.

He said, "We shall see."

The next day, conscription officers came to seize young men for the army, but because of the broken leg the farmer's son was rejected. Then the neighbors came to say how fortunately everything had turned out.

He said, "We shall see."