What Is Tao?

by Alan W. Watts

Now I am of a somewhat skeptical temperament, and I very much doubt if in fact this way of coming to decisions really works. But I say this with a certain qualification, because we can never really prove whether any method of coming to a decision really works. I may make a supremely foolish decision and as a result of it I get killed, but there would be absolutely no way of showing that my getting killed at that moment did not preserve me from a worse fate, and perhaps from making mistakes that involve the lives of many other people. If I do happen to succeed by making a right decision in business affairs and I earn millions of dollars, there is likewise no way of showing that this was not so bad for my character that it was the worst thing that could have possibly happened. So we never really know whether the outcome of a decision will be a failure or a success in the long run, because only the unknown — only what comes next — will show whether it was good or bad. And the unknown stretches infinitely before us.