Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Many of the “doers” turned “thinkers” like Montaigne have done a serial barbell: pure action, then pure reflection.

I have to work, I find it preferable (and less painful) to work intensely for very short hours, then do nothing for the rest of the time (assuming doing nothing is really doing nothing), until I recover completely and look forward to a repetition, rather than being subjected to the tedium of Japanese style low-intensity interminable office hours with sleep deprivation. Main course and dessert are separate.

(going to parties has optionality, perhaps the best advice for someone who wants to benefit from uncertainty with low downside).

when you are limited to the school material and you get bored, you have a tendency to give up and do nothing or play hooky out of discouragement. The trick is to be bored with a specific book, rather than with the act of reading.

read them in bed, jumping from one book to the next when stuck with something I did not get immediately or felt ever so slightly bored. And I kept ordering those books. I was hungry to go deeper into the problem of small probabilities. It was effortless.

To conclude this section, note that doing is wiser than you are prone to believe—and more rational.

For the fragile, the cumulative effect of small shocks is smaller than the single effect of an equivalent single large shock.

if you have more than one reason to do something (choose a doctor or veterinarian, hire a gardener or an employee, marry a person, go on a trip), just don’t do it. It does not mean that one reason is better than two, just that by invoking more than one reason you are trying to convince yourself to do something.