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Kindle Notes & Highlights
When you’re the author of your own fate, you don’t want to write a tragedy. Aside from anything else, the possibility of a sequel is nonexistent.
Anticipating problems and figuring out how to solve them is actually the opposite of worrying: it’s productive.
And it’s true, you don’t need to obsess over details if you’re willing to roll the dice and accept whatever happens. But if you’re striving for excellence—whether it’s in playing the guitar or flying a jet—there’s no such thing as over-preparation. It’s your best chance of improving your odds.
In any field, it’s a plus if you view criticism as potentially helpful advice rather than as a personal attack.
Early success is a terrible teacher. You’re essentially being rewarded for a lack of preparation, so when you find yourself in a situation where you must prepare, you can’t do it.
good leadership means leading the way, not hectoring other people to do things your way. Bullying, bickering and competing for dominance are, even in a low-risk situation, excellent ways to destroy morale and diminish productivity.
Fortunately, we also knew the boldface that could save us: focus on the journey, not on arriving at a certain destination. Keep looking to the future, not mourning the past.
For me, anyway, going into a high-pressure situation feeling calm and fully prepared has another benefit, too: I’m able to live more fully in the moment, absorbed and engaged in it, and better able to appreciate it as it unfolds rather than in retrospect.
Making a flowery toast afterward, thanking your nearest and dearest for all their support, just won’t cut it if, again and again, you’ve passed up opportunities to show appreciation in real time.
Physical and psychological adaptation to a new environment, whether on Earth or in space, isn’t instantaneous. There’s always a bit of a lag between arriving and feeling comfortable.
But a zero isn’t a bad thing to be. You’re competent enough not to create problems or make more work for everyone else. And you have to be competent, and prove to others that you are, before you can be extraordinary.
Loneliness, I think, has very little to do with location. It’s a state of mind. In the center of every big, bustling city are some of the loneliest people in the world.
But fundamentally, life off Earth is in two important respects not at all unworldly: You can choose to focus on the surprises and pleasures, or the frustrations. And you can choose to appreciate the smallest scraps of experience, the everyday moments, or to value only the grandest, most stirring ones. Ultimately,
the real question is whether you want to be happy.
I view each mission as just one thread in the overall fabric of my life—which is, I hope, nowhere near over.
If you start thinking that only your biggest and shiniest moments count, you’re setting yourself up to feel like a failure most of the time.
The challenge is avoiding being derailed by the big, shiny moments that turn other people’s heads.
Endings don’t have to be emotionally wrenching if you believe you did a good job and you’re prepared to let go.
